by Max Zänker
Staff Writer
Ryan Minic sits nervously outside the Oaks tapping his fingers to a quick beat on the metal table. He is addicted, to music that is. He asks everyone passing by: “Dude, do you have a guitar? I need a guitar! I need to jam right now!”
Music is his life, and with his first solo project “Specially Designed For Commercial Radio,” Minic has just released his rookie album called, “A Public Service Announcement For The Dehumanized Population.”
Health is also a big factor in Minic’s life, a bigger factor than in most other students’ lives. When he was just a few months old, the University of La Verne freshman caught a bacterial infection and he suffers from spinal meningitis.
The infection affects his back and his coordination. Minic can only walk with the help of a walker.
“I could not take a single step without falling down,” he said.
But his medical problems do not depress him or even influence his positive attitude about life.
“I have never (sat) down and regret,” Minic said. “Everybody has his own problems. You just have to deal with it.”
Instead, Minic sat down and recorded his first album.
The outcome is a CD of vocals and guitar music that you can listen to as background music or sitting in front of the speakers, focusing on the socially conscious lyrics.
The artist described his rookie recording in musical metaphors: “If Bob Dylan had a crack baby with Björk that tried to sing like an Italian Castrate, that might be the result.”
“A Public Service Announcement For The Dehumanized Population” means a tremendous amount to Minic, “I put my whole life and emotion into the CD,” he said. “I feel like a person can get to know everything about me if he or she analyzes the music.”
The album’s title comes from a special recording concept used for the production.
Inspired by the film “Crossroads,” about blues artist Robert Johnson, Minic recorded his album live, with only one take and no ‘rewind and record.’
“Nowadays, every studio album is so fake,” Minic said.
“Humans are not perfect, so why should music be? Technology is a good thing, but it dehumanizes music.”
ULV international student Caroline Franke enjoys Minic’s music. “I was actually surprised that I liked it, because this is normally not the kind of music I like,” said the 24-year-old fan of electronic beats. “I was especially impressed by Ryan’s voice. It is very highly developed for his 18 years.”
Minic started playing piano when he was 6 years old. He played for four years and then quit.
“I was always forced to practice and so the fun got lost,” he said.
Minic then tried his hand at the trumpet, but he quit after one year and said he became “fed up with music.”
At the age of 13, Minic started writing lyrics, but his first attempts were not successful.
“They were so stupid,” he said. “I was writing random things that made no sense about my girlfriend or the ones I would have liked with me. At some point, I grabbed the guitar and tried to play, because what are lyrics without songs?”
At that point, something happened that he would later describe as a turning point in his life. He met Tom Tussing, who became his guitar teacher for three years and later his mentor.
“Tom had my phone number from that store where I had bought my guitar. He told me that he could make me play like ‘Korn’, so I did it,” Minic said.
During his high school years, Minic played in a band called “Don’t Trust A.J.” who he recorded a demo tape and had his first band experience with. But because of many personality conflicts, “Don’t Trust A.J.” broke up, just before the members were leaving high school.
In January of this year, Minic found himself at another milestone the choice of college.
“I sat down and said to myself: ‘If you want to do something for your music, you have to go L.A. or New York,” he said. “And I was really sick of the snow in Ohio, so I chose to come out west”.
But Minic knew that he could not go to Los Angeles without a demo of his music. He started writing in March, but did not really know what he wanted to do until Tussing showed him “Crossroads.”
Minic recorded the CD in his hometown Columbus, Ohio, and remastered it in Nashville, Tenn.
“A Public Service Announcement For The Dehumanized Population” will be available for order online at retailers like amazon.com or Target on Nov. 3.
The album contains four tracks, according to the four seasons of the year.
“When I listen to music, I see colors,” he said. “Some music makes you feel green, blue, or brown and it’s the same thing with seasons.”
In his lyrics, Minic sings in metaphors about society, relationships and his own view of the world.
The chorus of his last song sums up the CD and also summarizes Minic’s life and struggle with his disability in a nutshell, as he sings “Remember you: that it can be done. Even thought they’ll tell you that it can’t be done. We will always tell you that it can’t be done. Even I will always tell you that it can’t be done. But if you feel it you know it”
For more information visit Minic’s Web site www.sdfcr.com.
Max Zänker
