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Meet Ryan Yingst

  • David Milkis
  • Jun 13, 2024
  • 6 min read

Updated: Nov 12, 2024

Article by canvasrebel


We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ryan Yingst a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.


Ryan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I think about this a lot. In most ways, I’m really happy with my timeline because I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences that have opened me up to a lot of sides of music. I started out as a violinist from a really young age, didn’t take it seriously at all, and didn’t pick up the guitar until high school. I think I knew it was what I wanted to do right away. So I practiced like hell to get into school studying jazz guitar and sound engineering. So many of the performances along the way made me really nervous, and I don’t think I really started to feel comfortable as a performer until I was a junior or senior in college. Everyone was so talented and just always seemed so far ahead of me.


After college I started working at Plus Minus Recording in the south side of Pittsburgh and started performing with some local bands and a few touring acts on bass and guitar. I was writing music all through this time, but didn’t really see myself as a frontman until 2019. That’s when I started performing my music out for people and something about performing music that was authentic and so true to myself really opened me up as a performer. I got such a great response to my performances and that really pushed me. I recorded my album ‘Bar Rings’ in 2020 and was prepping to take the songs on the road when COVID hit. I was pretty bummed I didn’t get to do the release I had planned on, but I decided to make the most of it and I followed through with plans to move to Nashville in June of 2020. COVID made performing difficult, but also helped me clarify my focus and really commit my focus to this new space of being the ‘artist’ and not just performing other folks music. My mid twenties felt like a new era of study in a lot of ways. I performed more than I ever had and in so many configurations. This felt like a whole new field of study, and I felt my shows and writing mature. Nashville taught me a lot about what I wanted, and didn’t want, from music and being an artist.


In a lot of ways I wish I had started earlier. I always hear about new artists picking up steam aged 17-24, but I like that my early twenties were spent studying my craft, on the road with acts, in the studio learning production and just generally growing my understanding of music. I think the songs I have been writing over the last couple years are much more authentic for it. I’m so excited for the projects that I have coming up because they really feel like a combination of these skills. Most of the tracks I’ve been working on are completely self produced, and a few of them only have me playing on them. Not out of selfishness or a lack of belief in my talented friends, but just because I’m approaching an age where I want to prove to myself that gathering this knowledge was the right thing to do. I don’t want to turn songs over to a producer or leave them in the hands of a team to come back later and only add some vocals like a lot of songs that are released today. I want to be embedded in the recordings. I want to create something that connects with a listener based on a shared moment in time that was captured in a recording. Where things happen to lock together in a beautiful moment. Those moments make the recordings I find myself coming back to over and over. Where things are not ‘perfect’. Voices might crack, tempos might push or pull, but I has a beautiful realness that drives our emotions.


Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Well like I said, I released ‘Bar Rings’ in 2020 and I consider that as kind of the start of my career as an artist under my name. That album is a cool time capsule of who I was when I embraced my writing and began fronting my own project. I had some excellent musicians join me for a series of tracks that was more on the indie rock side of things. From there I moved and started performing in Nashville and spent the last few years developing songwriting and live shows, both in a wide range of arrangements and genres. I settled on the genre ‘indie folk’ because it seemed to be the most fitting way to include all my influences and encompass the wide swings my songwriting can take. I write music about loss, hope, addiction, love and pull from experiences in my life.


I had a rough couple of years through 2020-2022 in dealing with friends and family who passed away, my dads illness, and a random attack from behind in Nashville that left me needing reconstructive surgery on my face. A lot of my writing has come from these moments, but I also draw from the hope of growth and positive change as well as the love of people who care for us. I’ve released ‘Meditations on Empty Streets’ EP (early 2021), ‘Live at +/-‘ double single (2021), ‘Incessant’ single (2022), ‘Please Don’t Burn the Sage’ single (2023), and ‘Chaos’ single (2023).


My writing has grown and adapted through these tracks and with the release of ‘Please Don’t Burn the Sage’ and ‘Chaos’ I feel a turning point in my music where my most authentic writing is beginning to surface. I moved to Philadelphia in 2024 to continue performing throughout the northeast and I’m currently working on my next project which will be a collection of songs that I think showcase a new side of my works that I’m incredibly proud of, some of which I’ve been holding onto for years, some are brand new. I have some very talented players joining me for this project as well as a few tracks that I have been entirely under my control, where I performed all the parts and handled all the production.



What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding part of being an artist for me is probably the day to day. It’s so stressful, but it’s mine. I decide my hours and direction. I would definitely like to bring on some more help to make the business side of my career a little smoother, but having control of my life feel so absolute and is rewarding in itself. It’s difficult, every day feels like a job interview sometimes, between booking shows, promoting music and trying to keep up with the industry. But ultimately I am creating something that feels permanent and lasting.


The other aspect that feels like the more obvious answer is watching the songs come together. The build up can either be so smooth, like when a song comes together out of no where in a couple hours time or less, or it can be grueling. It is so painful when you know you have a good section to a song but you’re struggling to get it completed. But when that song finally comes together, it’s bliss.


What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

We need to learn to dig for ourselves again. Not everyone has time to search through records or physical media all day and I totally get that. And I understand that finding time to get out to local shows is hard for some folks, but I think we’re entering an age where automated processes have way too much power in determining our taste. Buying a ticket directly from a band is such a great feeling. The same goes with merch or finding some song online from a band you’ve never heard of. For every huge artist there are tons of smaller ones that have similar inspirations and probably appeal to an individual’s taste more, but they get passed over if you’re not looking. When we need a mechanic we try to go to someone we know, because there’s power in building a rapport with our communities, I would just like to see the same thing around music. The more we give power to others to tell us what ‘good’ music is, the less diversity we’ll find in music. Find something that you like just because you like it. That’s good music. I feel like finding art that inspires you can be an art form in itself. Go to local shows, support your friends, talk to artists, buy merch if you can. As an artist I’ve never faulted someone for not being able to support or make it to a show, but I absolutely remember all the people who show up.


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