J Ryan sprang into the music scene at the very young age of 13 by singing in various organised gigs in India. By the time he reached 17 he knew he wanted to do more than sing, so he picked up an acoustic guitar and began to teach himself how to play. He worked with a few bands in India mainly as a singer, but was soon able to play guitar as part of a group.
He moved to Muscat, Oman in 2000 where he sang his way through several contracts. He was the only musician to have been continuously offered contracts for 7 years in Oman, whereas musicians are mostly given 3-6 month contracts! Throughout this time, J Ryan improved his guitar-playing by listening to and watching guitarists like John Petrucci, Joe Satriani, Santana and Yngwie Malmsteen. He began to play professionally from 2003.
In Oman, customers came back week after week, month after month, year after year mainly to watch his extraordinary guitar playing and to hear his amazing voice. His ability to sing a wide range of covers from ACDC to ZZ Top, Bryan Adams to Metallica, John Denver to Santana (the list is endless) impressed customers from around the world. A guest commented during one of his last shows: "I wish the guys from Pink Floyd were here to see Ryan play The Wall. They would not believe it." Another customer said: “That version of Comfortably Numb sent shivers down my spine”.He then took a break from performing six nights a week in order to work on his debut album.
He made a home video of Zoe, which was entered into the UK Babelgum Music Video Awards and in February 2009 he was one of the semi-finalists. J Ryan's music has been played regularly on OTC (Off The Chart Radio) a UK internet radio station and the song Zoe was number one in Jamie Nemeth's Unchart. J Ryan was asked to cover one of New Mexico's top rock band, Racecar's songs which he did and which is featured on their MySpace page as it was well received.
In 2010 the album was finally completed in Kathmandu, Nepal where J Ryan was living. The project was a very difficult one due to the power situation in Nepal - by that I mean anything up to 20 hours of no power a day for several months at a time! Due to the lack of sound engineers in the area, J Ryan completed the album in his own home studio. All instruments (except piano on Every Moment), vocals, mastering, producing has been done by himself. All lyrics except for three songs (What's Going On, Every Moment and Used & Confused, which were written by his wife Sonya) were written by J Ryan.
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