Rick Ryan

Friday, September 12, 2003








What do you do when music grabs hold of you and won't let go?
If you're like Rick Ryan, you do whatever you can to help it be heard.

Rick Ryan says music is "what I should be doing. Music is my passion."

Kira Horvath, Deseret Morning News
Rick Ryan (he was born Rick Ryan Hancey, but uses Rick Ryan professionally) has been on a musical journey most of his life. He remembers being 4 years old when an older brother got an acoustic guitar. "I was enamored of it." He got his own guitar when he was 12. "I started playing along with all the Beatles songs."
Then, another brother brought home a Herb Alpert album, "and all I wanted to do was play the trumpet."
That was the thing about having five older brothers, says Ryan, who grew up in Salt Lake City and attended Cottonwood High, "I got introduced to a lot of different music." The Eagles. Bread. Bryan Adams. But through it all, he felt his own kind of music, as well. "I just felt this was what I should be doing. Music is my passion."
At age 18, he hooked up with the producers of the "Donny and Marie Show." Ike Egan and Denny Crockett produced his first record, a 45 rpm with two songs. "It's still hanging on my wall," he laughs.
That opened a few doors, and he also hooked up with an independent backer, which led to other connections in the music business. He's worked with Bill Drescher, the producer of such acts as Rick Springfield and Richard Marx. He collaborated on songs with REO Speedwagon's Gary Richrath. A national publisher owns a catalog of his songs. Over the years, "I've written about 150 songs, done more than a hundred demos."
But after living in Los Angeles off and on for 15 years, Ryan realized he wanted to come back home. "I'd been leaving my destiny in the hands of others. And it wasn't happening."
Since coming back, he has put together his first CD of his own songs, a collection called "Emotion." A project that has taken him three years (yes, he still has a day job) to write, record and get just right, it has an adult contemporary feeling overall, he says, although you can hear traces of pop, country, folk and other genres.
"I'm a hopeless romantic," he says. "And these songs are my testament to life. To both the joy and pain of relationships." As a single father of a 6-year-old son, he's known both sides. "Cody, he's my inspiration — and my biggest critic. I love it when he hears a song and tells me, 'You sing better than that, Dad.' "
Ryan's CD was co-produced by Tino Saiki and features collaborations with local musicians Tom Hopkins and Brett Raymond, among others. "I've been blessed to work with the people I've worked with," he says. "They're a good group. Through the years they've seen me climb this mountain. They've seen my dream and my passion."
Making music is always a collaborative effort, he says. "If you hear an artist taking all the credit, you know he's not telling the truth. What's gone on behind the scenes is what makes the music what it is." And, he says, there's so much talent here. "Anything you need is right here."
So, Ryan says, he's simply "turning one stone at a time. Hopefully, the right doors will open."
He has goals. "I'd like to see some of my songs get into movies. I think they have the right feel for that." He'd like to "show record companies there's a place for music with positive values." He'd also like to get to the point where he could help "others struggling with the same dream. A lot of very talented people never get heard."
Above all, he'd like to "give back some of the joy I get from music. I'd like people to go away from one of my shows and feel good inside." It's what happens, he says, when music really gets hold of you.

- Deseret news