Songs From The Eye Of An Elephant by Ryan Star

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RYAN STAR

I was always told that you need a story. A tale that makes people want to hear the music. My belief, although maybe naïve to this crazy business, was to have a song that makes people want to hear the story. I guess you can call this the prologue because my story is about to begin.

It started a long time ago for me. Born and raised in Long Island, New York I have been writing and performing music longer than I have not. The early exposure to music came mostly from my parents who, although had given me the second name of "star," claim to have not been hippies. The record collection I discovered was also on par with the notion of having rocker parents. The Doors, The Stones, Janis, Joni, The Who, Simon and Garfunkel, among so many others who shared the same humbling feeling a person feels when listening to a song like "yesterday" or a voice like Stevie Wonder's. That record collection became my bible and my education.

It all lead me to my pubescent years of learning to play guitar to Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana. Up until then I was the coolest jazzman to roam the Elementary school halls with my tenor saxophone (my older cheerleading, drama queen sister told me the boys who played the sax were the best kissers. I had never kissed but I knew being good was an excellent quality to possess). I loved playing the wind instrument and still do, but I soon realized that singing was my most true passion and it was quite difficult to do both simultaneously. My big brother (the athlete) had a guitar that except for the occasional one string Def Leopard solo was collecting dust. I picked it up and instantly began playing songs by ear and started putting my own ideas on a 4-track cassette recorder. Shortly after that, I convinced my brother to play the drums and my older sister to play the bass. Jackson 5 aspirations quickly expired and it didn't take long before their new instruments also found their ways into my hands. Song was now everywhere and everything to me. I remember while all of my friends playing video games after school, I would just lock myself in the basement writing, recording and getting to know my music.

I was fourteen years old and I was selling my records at school when a classmate heard what I was doing and decided that I should be the singer in his band (Trust me when I say that this story is and was a whole other bio). We played all through high school at famous New York clubs like CBGB's and Mercury Lounge (our parents always had to be there with us because we were underage). Then we continued with our musical pursuit even more seriously through college when Madonna signed us to a record deal in my senior year at a university in New York. I left with no hesitation (having a degree in philosophy doesn't make life much more stable than pursuing a rock star career anyway) and headed for Los Angeles where "rock records" are made. We toured the country a few times and when we finally returned home and started our second album, I decided that it was time to move on to something different. I felt that I wasn't there yet. I needed more from life and music. I left my band and best friends of ten years to take the leap and follow my heart. You see, I feel most myself when the lights are out and it is just me sitting at the piano or lying with my guitar.

Now, here I am. The first page, the first song. I sat down to write and a new friend called "So Ordinary" introduced itself to me. "I'm breaking out it's a tidal wave of everything to come. I'm breaking out, so I'll ride the wave and see what I become... Stop trying to be so ordinary. Be strong, be brave and begin your story. 'Cause it's all that you've got when you make it in this world..." Like I said before, first the song then the story.

The last few months brought me back home to the same basement where I learned about who I was and where my dreams were discovered. I am not at all a novice to the world of music but for the first time in my memory I feel and sound brand new, and although I am much different now, my dreams are the same.

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