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 Joshua Ryan - Profile | |||||||||||||||||||
 Joshua Ryan is a producer's producer, the man behind the curtain, the one who sweats in the studio and then shirks the credit. But, as progressive house aficionados will attest, this 24-year-old music maven has already proved himself a Renaissance man of sorts in the world of electronic music and then some. Producer. DJ. Promoter. Graphic designer. Joshua Ryan has touched upon it all in his eight years in the American dance music scene. As a teenager coming from a graphic arts background, Joshua began creating live video mixes for one-off parties near his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Quickly shifting gears from the visual to the aural, he began to produce a steady stream of original music and remixes that continues to flow unabated today. As a DJ, he's spun all over the world, from Crobar in Chicago, Gatecrasher and Slinky in London, to Code in Tokyo and at parties in nearly every state in the union. Now he's gaining notoriety as a first rate producer. With each successive release, records like his smash club hit "Pistolwhip" which galvanized clubgoers and DJ's worldwide (eventually hitting #29 in the UK pop charts - extremely rare for a purely instrumental song), Joshua's reputation as a phenomenal DJ and producer is as assured as his commitment to pushing forward the boundaries of his art. Coming from a musical family, Joshua notes, "I started out playing drums. My uncle had an old Ludwig jazz kit that I would bang on in my parent's basement." But soon computers became his real passion. "I was eight when I got my first computer," he says excitedly, "and that was that." The next eight years were spent in front of the screen, experimenting with various incarnations of graphic design and music programs. "I didn't go to school much, but I was really into screwing around with computers." Mastering the mixing skills was easy. Soon Joshua was playing gigs all over the northwest. But making music was always priority number one, so he started on a self described "painfully crappy set-up," making tapes and giving them out to other producers. One of these early tapes led to a deal with Rampant record's nascent side-project, Slinkey records, all while Josh was still a teenager. "My second release was called "Dontlookback," and suddenly Sasha and Digweed were calling the label and asking for extra copies. It was in Digweed's Top 10 in Muzik. I was in shock." Despite studio limitations, Joshua's talent had shown through. But it wasn't until Joshua sent Fragrant, (the now-defunct West coast trance label), a demo of a new track, "Pistolwhip", that things starting getting out of hand. "I was totally surprised," Joshua laughs. "It ended up selling quite a bit. Pete Tong, Judge Jules, Tall Paul, Paul Oakenfold were all playing it along with pretty much every American DJ I knew." Suddenly Josh's face was on the cover on Urb magazine, and glowing press followed in the likes of Ministry, Jockey Slut, Muzik, Mixer, XLR8R, etc (UK dance bible Mixmag went so far as to call it "The Sound of the Future."). "In early 2001 NuLife (BMG) re-released it as double pack with remixes by Way Out West, James Holden, and Ariel, and it did enormously well in the UK. I never would have dreamed I'd be in the charts above Britney Spears!" Fast forward to 2002 : Joshua is set to release a red hot new single called "Buildings Inbetween", with a searing vocal from Harland, dropping in the Fall of 2002, and is making ready his first full-length album -- both for System Recordings (home to Dieselboy, his HUMAN label and Danny Tenaglia, amongst others). Joshua also has several side projects in the works. As a drum 'n' bass producer, he's collaborated with some of the biggest names in the US drum'n'bass scene – his former roommate and close friend Dieselboy, Kaos, Nick Bulletproof (Binac) and Sine. The collective recently produced several tracks for Dieselboy's ambitious 'projectHUMAN' CD under the name Weapon. Golan Globus, an electronic / instrumental group he's formed with his brother, a guitarist and former member of two influential math rock outfits, Don Cabellaro and Storm & Stress (Touch and Go). And then there's AWNBWN (Artists Whose Names Begin With Numbers), which Ryan describes as "God Speed You Black Emperor meet Parliament meets JJ Fad." As trance music gets more and more popular stateside, setting the pace for commercials and football interstitials across the nation, Joshua decidedly places his music on the other side of the arena. "I create and play energetic progressive music, not lowbrow Euro-trance that's became so popular in the past few years. It's a sad situation that when people hear the word "trance" they automatically think of the obvious melodic build-ups with drum rolls and epic synth lines. I try to produce very intricate, very technical music with a quality song structure, serious drum work and subtle melodies that don't hit you over the head. Music that moves you." And his dedication to his craft shows. "I love making dance music. Love it,' he says, "And when I do it, I'm going to do it properly."
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