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Music History.
THE BEGINNING:
When I was a child, music was something that seemed to attach itself to me. First, when I was very young, my mother would call me “The Commercial Kid” because I would sing all the television commercials I saw regularly. Then there was the time in a restaurant bathroom that I sang out loud during my time in there to the surprise of all the restaurant patrons. From what I have been told, they all stopped to listen to the 5-year-old kid belting out the latest radio hit. Though I am not much of a singer, children don’t have the ego to worry about how they sound, like us adults. That was obviously before I had learned to fear what others thought.
Since rock and roll was a taboo subject in our home, I was exposed to classical, country, adult contemporary and Christian music. Other than the classical music, I did not connect as well to the other forms, especially the Christian music. It has been my experience that most white folk just don’t know how to sing to their God with much real passionate inspiration in churches. Inspirational music is almost a forgotten art form today, as it too has become very homogenized. So what is a child to do? I had asked my parents if I could play in the school orchestra. They obliged as long as it didn’t interfere with our religion. So they bought me a violin and off I went. I had a very good teacher who didn’t have very talented students to work with. We squeaked away at our instruments boldly. I am sure that Bach was rolling over in his grave to hear how we were mangling his tunes. Nonetheless, it was a beginning.
About two years later, when I was 10 my brother Raymond introduced me to a band called Journey. This was my first real deep exposure to Rock music. I was stunned. Neil Schon’s guitars hit me like a ton of bricks. Here was a sound I wanted to make. I listened to as many albums of Journey that I could. Then Ray showed me some music by a band called Rush. I was stunned again. I couldn’t believe the drive behind their rhythms. There seemed to be a powerful sound to Rock n Roll that was almost familiar.
Neil Schon convinced me that I wanted to play the guitar. Rush convinced me that I wanted to create powerful music. Not too much happened after that. The time just wasn’t right for a change. But my father did take me to Crazy Jim’s Music store and bought me a guitar. It was a red Crestwood hollow body.
Two years after that, we moved from our home in Minnesota to Florida. My brother who was playing drums for a while then, picked up my guitar and played it better then I did. I was furious. But I hadn’t done anything. That was a crushing blow. So I picked it up again and started playing all the time. The time was right. I was 12 years old and needed an outlet anyway for the new stages that life was taking me through. By this time there was a lot more music exposure going on. Music is an important part of pre-teens and teenagers’ lives. I got exposed to heavy metal music. I liked it a lot for it’s aggressive and classical rooted back end. Since I was always a geek and never popular there was lots of time to practice. That is all I did for 2 more years.
By the time I was 14 our family had fallen apart. My brother had moved back to Minnesota, my sister had left home, our parents spilt up. I had met a few musicians around this time and had some experience playing music with them, but I still wasn’t any good. Just like the violin scratching, now it was loud guitar fuzz and screeches. It must have driven my mother nuts. My brother felt that life wasn’t very good in Florida. He offered to let me live with him if our parents would let me go. Since I was not a very good son at the time, they were willing to let me leave home. Just before my 15th birthday I left Florida.
HARD TEASER:
My brother and I started playing music together. He had become very inspirational to me on his drums. When he would pound out a beat, I just knew what to play without thinking. We jammed some with friends here and there but nothing much happened. Then a buddy of mine, Shawn Rust, invited me to a party. I brought my guitar and amp along with. I remember standing in the middle of the room jamming alone to a house full of people as they watched and got drunk. Then one guy yelled out YOU'RE COOL. And for the first time in my life, someone thought I was cool. I was so happy to hear it, but after years of thinking that way, my ego was killing me. Anyway, we met a fellow by the name of John Moe who played bass. John was awesome. He had gear, and we all enjoyed the same types of music. HARD TEASER was formed.
We played for a while, just us three. We learned lots of cover tunes. I had actually started to get pretty good at guitar. I had had my first exposure to small time fandom and groupies. What a life for a 15 year old. Those were the years of spandex and hairspray. We played a lot of Dokken and Whitesnake at the time. Between partying and practicing, school just seemed to fall away and eventually my high school asked me to leave. That was no big deal to me since I had a great job at a car wash so I could buy gear. My brother had helped me get a better guitar then the one I had. I kept upgrading until I could afford a Charvel guitar. They became my guitar of choice. I think Jake E. Lee had a hand in that.
Ray and I went to a Rock concert one night and saw a tall blonde fellow with the biggest hair I had ever seen. We walked to him and asked if he was a singer. He was. We quickly gave him our phone numbers and got his. We must have called him for months over and over until he finally got sick of it and returned the call. Then enters Dane Vorce. His real name was Michael but who uses their real name? We got together, showed him our stuff and we all decided to start working together. Dane brought Max with him. Max (also known as David Louisiana) was another guitar player. We had played with them both for a while but Max had kind of gotten tired of the whole thing and decided to bow out.
So Dane had suggested we write some original material and record it. We wrote two songs, “Love is the Answer” and “Take You”. These songs were very cheesy and wimpy, but it was a beginning for us. The cool thing was that at the age of 16, I got to record in a real studio for the first time. The whole recording process is one that I fell in love with. It’s dark, it’s got a lot of music gear, and there’s music. There is just something about hearing a song come together track by track that makes my blood flow better in my veins. I still love that process today, and I always will. I remember asking a lot of questions and learning as much as I could.
After some months our little band fell apart. Dane went off to live in Los Angeles and pursue a real music career the best he could. Ray and I stopped jamming, and John and I had gotten upset with each other too many times. I spent time working at a potato packing plant. Since nothing was going on except boredom, I cut my hair, got a better job and became a real bummer.
Ray and I once again lived together for a few months, in a drabby little apartment, when we got a phone call. It was Dane in Los Angeles. He was trying to track us down. His experience out there wasn’t going very well so far, so he invited us to move there and try to put a band together. John and I tried to set aside our differences and the three of us packed up and headed out to LA.
SINGAPORE SLING:
We weren’t in Los Angeles long before the city itself started kicking our asses. Los Angeles is not a place where one can afford to be a bum. We had to learn hustle fast to survive. It was a new way of living for me, but I loved that city and the feeling that it holds of opportunity. No place on earth is like it. Ray decided at that time he needed a break from himself. He went off to live again with Dad and rekindle his spirit. John lost interest in the Los Angeles lifestyle and went back to Minnesota. So there was Dane and I. We moved into a great apartment and started to write some music while I was getting accustomed to the new life.
After a short while Ray moved back and rejoined us. He was having problems playing drums because of a shoulder injury, so he decided to switch to the Bass guitar. We then spent the months and years looking for a drummer and another guitar player. Eventually we met Zen who played guitar. After some more months, we met Joe Paragona who played the drums. Singapore Sling was born. We all lived in a North Hollywood home together and converted the garage into a soundproof practice space.
Those were some of the best and worst years of my life. To this day I think about those times that we were together trying to fit into Los Angeles. Our particular style of music had disappeared from the scene and we were like a dead horse. Our goal was to perfect our sound, do a lot of recording and present a good show. “The Big Show” we had called it. Those were old ideas for the times. But we persevered and kept going anyway.
Eventually we had gotten a lot of songs recorded. We did some 16-track stuff and some 24-track stuff. The whole time I was still asking questions and learning about the process of recording. We even got some help from Ron Keel to get some better music recorded. I don’t think we really understood the value of what he was trying to teach us. We practiced a lot. I partied a lot. Dane wrote a lot. Joe and I partied some more. Ray smoked a lot. Nothing else really happened. The dream I had to play music was getting very distorted by other concerns. I never looked at the fact that we would actually have to play some shows to get anywhere. We just kept on practicing and recording. Though it was extremely valuable, it wasn’t enough to make a difference. My job was taking on a more important role in my life. THE END OF THE BEGINNING:
After 5 years of this process I had decided to move out of the house. I just couldn’t live with 4 other guys anymore. Once I was there it started to become clear to me that the music idea was just one big wheel spinning nowhere. Our band was never going to get anywhere. And now the music scene was so different that we would not be heard anyway. It was too late. I had gone from a real music lover to a real poser. I was more concerned with my looks then with my passion for playing. In fact, I didn’t really have any passion for music during that time and it lasted quite a while. Then Ray left the group, another great loss. Then Joe left the group, and it was a fatal blow.
I remember waking up one morning and sitting up in bed with a very odd sensation. My desire to play had left me. It was a bazaar sensation because I had wanted to play music since I was a child. My heart was broken. I had such sadness inside that it had to be medicated with a lot of drinking. The feelings I had then were so confusing that it made no sense to me why I was so hurt. It took many years to really comprehend what had happened to me as a person. There was nothing left to do but quit the band and move on. So I did.
Shortly thereafter, everyone else from the band had moved back to their respective homes. Then came the big earthquake of 1994 in Los Angles and I decided to move to Minnesota. I had no reason to live in Los Angeles anymore because I could do my regular work from anywhere. There was no music to do. I couldn’t seem to play. I did some minor recording here and there on my 8-track. For many reasons it was very painful to play. My heart just wasn’t in it because I was still very messed up. I had to let go of a lot of the old ideas and rediscover why I loved music so much. It is interesting to me that it took so long to let go of my greed and need for attention. I had thought performing was all about me. I had learned later it is all about the audience.
So I started to take the time to rebuild who I was. All the while hoping one day to write and record music again. The process of releasing the fears and resentments and bitterness and ego took 8 years before I could play again. I learned through watching many other performers give interviews that I had been all wrong about many things. I saw the light in the eyes of the men and women who knew themselves well enough to know that to really create music is to give. It is like a person who loves to cook food, and to share it. This inspired me, and gave me the direction to focus my passions. for music All the concerns I had about a future disappeared when I realized my only job, is to create the music and to share it. I needed not worry about the outcome.
That is when I met a guy named Jason Hebert. He got me playing regularly again. I shared with him my dream to one-day record my own album. He supported me and told me that he thought I could do it. I then shared it with some other friends and my brother and they also gave support. It seems everyone had faith for me that I had not had for myself. It was the last bit of encouragement I needed. The final fears seemed to melt away and it began. I found some awesome gear made by Roland that would allow me to record my own stuff whenever I had the time.
THE NEW BEGINNING:
So I was once again awakened to the greatness of music. Just like when I was a kid I could hear that sound within my ears again. I could feel the pounding of the drums. I could be moved by the deep passion of the bass. I could be in awe over the singing of a guitar. At first the new ideas for tunes came quickly to me. I had started recording in the fall of 2002. Three songs were done, but they were not that good. Then came a devastating day when all three songs were destroyed. I had lost a few months of work overnight.
I got into my car and drove for over an hour really pissed off. It also pissed me off to feel like such a victim. Crying and whining like a little baby. Nonetheless I cried. After calming down a bit, I believed that I could do it again, and start over. And you know, why not?
I had waited 8 years to do this. I had dreamed my whole life to do this. I had known forever it is what I must do. Was I really going to let one set back pull me down?
So it began again. And on January 15th of 2003 I started the album over. I re-recorded the three songs I had, and they were better then ever. The rest followed. It took 14 months to do this first album “A Manic Moment”. There were roughly 5 months that I didn’t record during that time. I wanted to let the music come freely and not push it. When I “try” to be creative it all comes out cheaply. So I have to just relax and wait for those moments of inspiration. Today I seem to have inspiration all the time. It is really a blessing.
During that year I also had been helping others to record. It was a real joy to help other people get their music out. I have a lot of hope for all of them. My niece Heather has a band called “The Daisy Cutters”. They have a very unique approach to their music and soon we plan on recording their group. My nephew Jake has taken on my longtime interest in playing guitar and recording. He has his own digital recorder now and is writing a lot of music in many different forms. It is awesome to see that much talent within the young of our family. Since I had started walking down this path, a few other friends of mine have pulled out their gear and also started playing again. We are all very excited like kids.
Hopefully I will continue to produce other groups and people with their projects. It has become as fun to me as my own music has. Today I am actively seeking better ways to help others get their music recorded and available to the public. I have a good deal of experience in production on many levels and I hope to use that experience in service to the entire family of music. So many musicians have gone before me and taught me that we are a family. In fact my real family is chock full of musicians. My mother was a singer, my father could have been a country western star, my brother is a drummer and a bass player, and my sister has the most charisma and talent of the whole family. Then there are the uncles. I have 2 uncles who are drummers, Russ and Joe and another uncle who is a guitarist, Dennis. And we can’t forget the cousins, Russ Junior who is also a drummer, and Tony who plays guitar. The music is in our bones, and in our souls.
As of the writing of this, March 30, 2004, this is where I am. The rest is the future. I hope to bring years of music into this world for all to hear. And I hope to remain in love with music forever, so that I never fall into the trap that once consumed me. The real glory is in the creation and sharing.
Thank you, Ryan Scott Ranney | ||
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© 2004 Inner Ear Infection Inc. All Rights Reserved. Ranney Studios. Ryan Ranney | ||
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