Ryan Bisio: Press

Ryan Bisio

Kerouak In Song

How Monterey local Ryan Bisio found a life in music is as singular a story as the song’s he’s woven into his second album “Rose Side of the Thorn”. Though, as Bisio would have it, “it is music that found me”. Not exactly an uncommon remark for a musician to make to be sure; his argument however is a convincing one.

When he was six years old, Bisio won the gold medal in the Junior Olympics for bowling. His prize- a Yamaha upright piano which he received classical training: Back, Chopin, etc. It is here that his life as a musician began, tied inextricably and for better or worse, to his life as an athlete. Not that athleticism and musicianship are all that typical or sibling skills to possess- and not that his athleticism has anything at all to do with his life’s passion for songwriting and performance. In fact, just the opposite is true of the 27 year old singer/songwriter.

“When I first got to the Peninsula in 2003, I was only recognized as a basketball player.” A coincidence he doesn’t necessarily want to be associated with and one that ultimately, he feels “detracts from the music.” Still, it is on a basketball scholarship when he was 22 years old, that Bisio came to Monterey to earn his Bachelor of Arts degree from the “still primitive” music department of California State University Monterey Bay- a then primarily jazz based department.

Bisio was among the first CSUMB students to graduate from a music program which now boasts atypical and eclectic acts like James Meder, Jam Squad, and Andrea Blunt. While the department was not the thriving outlet for creativity and recording it has now become, according to Bisio, “It helped me understand and realize what I was already doing and put it in terms. I really trust my instincts musically; [CSUMB] taught me how to speak the language…and illuminated where I wanted to go.”

While it is perhaps comfortable and all too common for people to associate Ryan Bisio with the sport, perhaps the most significant consideration to be gleaned from his pro-ball days is the size and versatility of his hands which have enabled him to take his guitar playing where precious few musicians are able. His ability to play chords with the use of his thumb, thus freeing up an entire finger on the fret board, has created for Bisio a wholly unique and recognizable sound.

Though from this sound it would seem that a guitar, and not the piano, was his first instrument, Bisio hadn’t even picked up a guitar until receiving one for his 20th birthday, at which point he began writing songs almost immediately. “Within a week or two I wrote a really silly song called “Teresa” or something like that. It made sense. That is what I was meant to do with the instrument. I had never written a song before I got a guitar.” Playing regularly at Monterey Live and the Alternative Café focuses him on bringing something new to the table each week. The piano has now become more than anything a way of “cleansing [his] palate in a live set.” Whereas his guitar is more or less “an extension of my own body” he says.

Ryan Bisio’s songwriting style on guitar may be compared to Dave Matthews’ and Ben Harper’s in that it is sort of stop-rhythm folk/blues style with subtle jazz undertones- it is anything but perfunctory, though it resonates freely and comfortably. The built-in pulse of his songs for guitar is a sound that audiences can’t help but fall into. For a songwriter who feels “like the messenger in this gig,” Bisio asserts he won’t write a song until the guitar tells him what it’s about.

“The guitar needs to speak to me,” he says, “I will not force words [until the song tells me] if it’s happy, sad, night, or day, strait, or gay. I rely on my guitar playing to tell me what the song is about.” For a musician who claims “Music, more than anything, will always be there for me. It’s the healthiest relationship I’ve had in my life,” it’s fitting that the word “love” appears in 13 out of the 16 songs on the new album.

His first album, “Sketches” available now only on Itunes, was self produced and recorded in 2005 and was primarily “Putting a stake in the ground-here I am.” While his debut album may have been very “bare bones” according to its creator, the rough ideas, and poignant lyricism of the first album may now be seen in a widely new light with the release of “Rose Side of the Thorn”.

“You close your eyes and see a pencil and paper,” Bisio says of his first album undertaking. The sketches drawn on that first album however, are anything but crude. His song “Simple as it Feels” features the chorus “I wish our love was as simple as it feels.” The emotion is something he claims “Everyone has felt…whether with a woman, a dog, or with God.” A simplistic idea perhaps, but one spoken with such authority, and in such medley with his guitar that one can’t help but take the words to heart.

While the songwriter is recovering from a self-proclaimed “sophomore slump,” in that it has taken Bisio three years to record between albums, for Bisio, who completely agrees with the Jack Kerouac school of thought in that “rewrites or revisions are a sin,” this album promises to be a masterful one.

“I took a lot of time to make sure this one is right. I will never be satisfied with where I am as a musician,” says the man whose biggest dream is going on the road and never coming back. Still, the 831 will always play home to the singer/songwriter.

“It’s not the cliché scenery” that inspires him, he says. “It’s simply that songs have always been here to find and to have. As long as they’re here, I’ll be here.”

The Singer/Songwriter