Song Writer, Poet, Story Teller

Columbus, Ohio musician, Ryan Warner, taught himself how to play guitar in 1996 as a freshman in college. “It took me a while to get through college though,” Ryan recalled. “Every time I started making headway in school it seemed like my music took off. I would be playing music three or four nights a week, and then not go to class very often,” he laughed. “But it was a lot of fun.”

He eventually went on to minor in Classical Guitar for a year at the University of Toledo where he also studied black and white film photography. While working in the dark room there, he developed a love for film photography and eventually created a series of prints of the underground DJ scene in Toledo, Ohio.

Ryan also plays banjo, harmonica, and percussion. His real passion is for writing though. He is not only a songwriter, but also dabbles in poetry, haiku, and short stories as well; and deep inside he knows there’s a novel in the making.

Ryan says his all time favorite band that influences his music is the Grateful Dead. “I think it’s really because they matched storytelling lyrics with improv jam, jazz, country, and blues.”

“Songwriting didn’t manifest itself for me until five or six years later – after college,” Ryan recalled. “I had a bunch of friends who were poets, and I would go to their poetry readings. I started figuring out that besides guitar music, the one thing that drew me to music was the lyrics. If the lyrics weren’t very good, the song didn’t hold my attention.”

When Ryan’s previous band broke up, he focused his attention on songwriting for a solo project he had in mind. Several of those songs are expected to be on his upcoming album release. “I figure now is the time to pull out a bunch of songs and start laying them down in the studio and get them recorded. I already have songs for the next album too, so hopefully in January I’ll start working on that one as well,” Ryan said.