UNREPENTANT ROAD RYAN BAYNE’S JOURNEY FROM ‘HACK MUSICIAN’ TO FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH WRITTEN BY JENNIFER SANDERS PETERSON 2009: It has been nearly sixteen years since I last saw my friend, Ryan Bayne; my lingering image of him, one of a flannel-clad drummer in the band ‘Storm Child,’ playing our Nampa High School lunch room. Our paths have crossed again (thank you, Facebook). We meet at a Moxie Java, discover we’re both single parents, mellowed by the years. He asks if I still play music. I laugh; mention I sold off the last of my synthesizers in 2000. I return the question, and he says he picks up the guitar from time to time, says he has a handful of songs he’s written and some big plans for them 2012: With most of the material a decade in the making, Ryan Bayne’s first full-length CD, Saints and Strangers, is finally a reality, an accomplished first step in those “big plans.” “I always stayed true to the kind of music I wanted to make,” says Bayne, “Music about love, life, redemption--I just wondered if there would ever be an audience for it.” Much of this doubt stemmed from a brief stint he did as a songwriter in Nashville, where he was told by one record label executive after another that he was definitely “not country.” Not the glammed-up pop country that was ruling the genre at the time, anyway. Now, already sold out of his initial run of hard copy CD’s, there’s no doubt a willing and eager audience for Ryan Bayne’s music exists. So, if not country, what is his style? Bayne says, “What I play is hard to categorize. It’s a little off kilter, a little dirtied-up, a little poetic. I always have three individuals I’m channeling when I write and sing: Jeff Tweedy [of Wilco], Tom Waits and Johnny Cash.” It’s the Johnny Cash reference that most listeners nod their heads in agreement with. The similarity is almost eerie, both Cash an Bayne possessing a deep, raw, gravelly truthfulness to their vocals. Both telling a story as much as singing a song, mixing in soulful harmonica solos amidst their straightforward guitar chords. One of the memorable stops along Ryan Bayne’s path towards local notoriety was his top placement in the 2010 Boise’s Got Talent
competition, where he garnished judges’ praise for his risky version of Dolly Parton’s classic, “Jolene”-- sung not in the sweet, simple way Parton did it, but with a passion like that of a man with fire in his belly and whisky in his throat. Steve Fulton, owner of the Audio Lab, and one of the judges that night, knew right away he needed to get Bayne’s voice recorded. And Ryan Bayne wanted to get recorded, too. But, “Recording music is an expensive endeavor if you want to do it right,” Bayne says. So, he kept polishing his material while he sold Harley Davidson’s at High Desert Harley (a job he still works), saving up the necessary cash to start work on his CD in June of 2011. Of his recording experience, Bayne notes, “Steve (Fulton) was completely indispensable in the process. I played most of the instruments, but there were songs that needed more texture than what I could give, and that’s when Steve became my back up band.” One of the tracks called “Not My Father’s Son,” features a hauntingly sad piano solo that wouldn’t have existed without Fulton’s direction. “Not My Father’s Son,” in fact, was one of the only new pieces on the CD, a song composed especially for the film, Driven: The Jens Pulver Story, an acclaimed documentary by Ryan’s brother, Boise filmmaker Gregory Bayne. “Greg has always been a huge supporter of mine. He calls me out, expects great things of me. If he hadn’t given me the opportunity to work on Driven, I may have just kept re-imagining my old stuff, and that song would never have come to be.” He adds with a laugh, “And it’s a good song, man.” Indeed, it is. Ryan will also be writing music for his brother’s next film Bloodsworth, the story of the first man exonerated from death row by DNA evidence. What else is in Ryan Bayne’s future? Look for him behind his trademark, hollow-bodied Gretsch guitar, playing regularly at The Press downtown. Also watch for an expansion into iTunes and YouTube, and more new music in the future. “Definitely more music,” he says. “I’m not afraid of the risk anymore. And my best stuff isn’t even written yet.”
Ryan Bayne’s CD Saints and Strangers is available for download or purchase on CDBaby.com CD Release Party will be April 7 at the Visual Arts Collective. Keep up with Ryan’s appearances around the valley: www.RyanBayne.com
FUSION MAGAZINE V.1.3 SPRING 2012 59