about me
Welcome to my story; a modern day Clark Kent-esque yarn-spin with a musical twist.
Off stage I am known as Ryan Byrne, the former public-school music teacher from New Hampshire with a love for life and a penchant for trivial information.
But just before I step onto the stage with Stephen Cochran & The New Country Outlaws, I go into the nearest internet-cafe-restroom (Hey, phone booths are getting harder to find these days, besides, this is my story) and emerge soon after as "Smitty", the blue-mohawk-wearin', tasmanian-devil-spinnin', bass-playin'-superfreak . . . er, I mean superhero, the likes of which country music has never seen before.
In The Beginning . . .
I was born in New Hampshire's largest city of Manchester, but raised in the small town of Gorham (NH) from the 3rd grade up.
I started playing saxophone in 4th grade and electric bass the summer after 6th grade.
After high school graduation I spent one year at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. It was one of the best years of my life.
For many reasons I ended up transferring to Plymouth State College (now Plymouth State University) in Plymouth, New Hampshire where I earned my B.S. in Music Education.
Not only did I learn a lot about life and meet some of my best friends at Plymouth, but I also started a rock band, called Nostalgic Distortion (ND), with some of my college friends that went on to stay together for 10 years, releasing 3 albums and playing small clubs around New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts.
Though we all hoped ND would one day provide us with full time work and a good living, we all had to find "real jobs" when we graduated from college.
I became a public school music teacher in a small, rural town in New Hampshire not too far from where I grew up. I loved the job and ended up staying for 6 years, all the while playing with ND on the side.
However, when I turned 29 years old, changes were taking place all around me and it forced me to reevaluate my life. Members of ND were getting married and starting families and it became clear that they wouldn't be able to give ND the same priority it had once held in their lives.
Still a dreamer at age 29, I realized I had to make some big changes in my life if I really wanted to pursue music full-time. I put my teaching career and ND on indefinite hiatus, packed my minivan with all my music gear and a few personal items, and moved to Nashville.
I changed my focus from co-fronting my own rock band to pursuing a sideman position as a bassist/back-up-vocalist for an artist.
I networked and played around town for two years for several different struggling artists before the opportunity with Stephen presented itself.
As a member of Stephen's band I have had the opportunity to open up for and/or share the stage with a multitude of artists/bands from a variety of genres, playing everything from small clubs for a few hundred people to large summer music festival crowds of nearly 50,000!
If only because of our "Jamboree In The Hills" performance, I can now say that I have shared the stage with Toby Keith, 38 Special, Miranda Lambert, Charlie Daniels Band, Marshall Tucker Band, The Wreckers, Flynnville Train, Cole Deggs & The Lonesome, and many more.
At other various shows we have opened for bands/artists running the gamut from The Gin Blossoms, to Jackyll, to Tony Terry, to John Anderson, among others.