By: Rick Landers
Ryan David Green – photo credit: Taylor Noel
Troubadour is a good fit to describe Ryan David Green, but dig a little deeper and you’ll soon realize the guy’s a guitar aficionado, with a touch sometimes so light that it sounds easy, as he bends, taps and cajoles his strings to bring out their magic. Add to that, he’s a masterful singer-songwriter…storyteller…and you grasp that your ticket is a gateway to a great show of lively entertainment.
Although friendly rivals in local bands during their early years, Ryan and Cameron Hood later joined forces to become a formidable duo, RyanHood, that rolled out several albums, as well as winning accolades for their musicianship and magnetic performances. The two earned high recognition that included being selected as the “Best Group/Duo” by the International Acoustic Music Awards and Green twice won “Best Guitarist” recognition by the Tucson Music Awards in his home state of Arizona.
“Ryan evokes feelings of longing and unbridled joy through heart-nestled guitarwork that rivals the greats”
— B Sides & Badlands
Ryan’s talents were recognized with a scholarship at the Berklee College of Music, where the competitive nature of being surrounded by his exceptional music peers, helped him improve taking his guitar skills and musicianship to new levels. His music has found placements in such commercial media as: “E!,” “Lifetime,” and ABC Family/Freeform.
Ryan has also shared billings with Train, Jason Mraz, Andy McKee, Peppino D’Agostino, Kelly Clarkson and more. And in 2024, he released a new solo album, Off and Running, helping him gather a growing and avid fan base.
“Ryan is painting pictures with sensational melodic arrangements.”
— Christie Lenée (International Fingerstyle Guitar Champion)
We first caught Ryan David Green at a packed house listening room in Northern Virginia where he “wowed” the crowd with his masterful guitar work, superb vocals and light-hearted soft spoken – and sometimes humorous – friendly banter. Guitar International is honored to present Ryan to our readers where he’ll surely gain even more followers!
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Ryan David Green – photo credit: Eric Morgensen
Rick Landers: You’ve worked extensively with Cameron Hood in your duet, Ryanhood and I expect when you find yourself performing as a soloist the performance dynamics and maybe your overall game plan differs.
Do you prefer to go solo or do you find working with Cameron offers a different kind of stress or adrenaline rush? How would you describe the differences in your experiences and approach?
Ryan David Green: Well, at this point, Cameron and I have been performing together for over 20 years… over 1500 shows. So it’s effortless. Which is a joy, and a place that I think we all strive to get to.
But that said, I am really enjoying the amount of effort required of playing solo. Whether it’s holding command of the stage alone, writing and performing complex single guitar arrangements, or simply facing the pressure of having to perform more perfectly. Most mistakes go unnoticed when Cameron and I are playing together, but alone the stakes are much higher! It’s been really invigorating and rewarding to step into this new challenge.
Rick: Moving from being a soloist to joining another for duet starts off as more of a lark, and later becomes fun and even spirited. How have you two evolved since meeting and joining forces?
Ryan David Green: Well, in the case of Cameron and I, we were both parts of four-piece rock bands before we joined as a duo, so it wasn’t a matter of going from solo to duo, but rather stripping away all the equipment and opinions of a four-piece group, and having the relief of scaling back as a duo, which brought a lot of flexibility and ease.
As far as our evolution, when we started out, Cameron was the singer and songwriter, and I was the lead guitarist and vocal harmonist and often producer-arranger. But over time, that’s expanded and we write most everything collaboratively now
Rick: And what about Tucson and it’s music community? Has it been nurturing with enough venues to build a fan base or did you find you had an urge to move beyond the area and Arizona?
Ryan David Green: Well, because I went to college at Berklee in Boston, and Cameron moved there to join me when we both finished college, Boston and Tucson both became home cities. So were sort of ‘beyond the area of Tucson from the get go, which really helped us expand our horizons and goals. It was street performing in Boston that helped us build a base in the Northeast, and it was getting to do a some shows opening for Jason Mraz in the Southwest that really gave us a boost there.
Rick: When I saw you at the Reston-Herndon Folk Club you packed the place and wowed everyone, many who have been performing for over fifty years. Do you find such listening rooms with older experienced musicians in the crowd a more welcoming crowd, than say a bar scene?
Ryan David Green: Yes I do! I recently had the chance to do some shows opening for acoustic guitar wizard Andy McKee, who does things on the guitar that are well beyond anything I do. I knew his audiences would be filled with guitarists, and I had a little bit of fear of being able to live up to their expectations. But, as soon as I stepped out on stage that fear was replaced with a sense of gratitude and joy and camaraderie… this is an audience of my people! People who love this instrument as much as I do!
Ryan David Green – photo credit: Taylor Noel
Rick: What kinds of music did you grow up listening to and what influenced you to buy your first guitar?
Ryan David Green: My dad listened to The Eagles, Dire Straits, Boston… he would always crank up the guitar solos, try to sing along with the impossibly high parts, and air drum the intro to “Money For Nothing”.
I definitely think those things seeped in quite a bit. I was gifted a guitar for Christmas from my grandma when I was 12… it was a nylon string starter guitar. I took to it instantly, and supplemented it with a $100 used Yamaha electric guitar within a year. Shortly after that, someone gave me a copy of Joe Satriani’s Time Machine album, a double album featuring one studio disc and one live disc, and that was probably the most influential album of them all.
Rick: It’s said – and I think it’s true – that learning to play guitar is pretty easy, but learning to play well can be demanding. What was it like for you to reach such an impressive level and did you get to places where you felt you plateaued and had to get re-motivated to get to the next level?
Ryan David Green: Well first off, thank you for the kind words. I feel like I’m lightyears behind so many of my favorite players, but that’s what makes the instrument so endlessly fun. Regarding plateaus, I do feel like after 20 years in a duo, I had kind of reached one, in that my role was the same.
Shifting into performing as a soloist has been incredibly invigorating… the fear of getting up on stage and making a fool of yourself is quite a practice motivator! And I feel like I’m still in the very early stages of this chapter, with so much I want to learn and do.
Rick: What curriculum did you study at the Berklee College of Music and we’re you initially impressed with the level of musicianship of the other students, anyone in particular among the staff or students that “wowed’ you?
Ryan David Green: I studied Guitar and Music Business/Management at Berklee. There were too many incredible musicians at Berklee to count. Hiromi (a virtuoso pianist) was there, you can look her up on YouTube and have your mind blown. Annie Clark, famous as St. Vincent. John Shannon was one of my favorite guitarists there.
Overall, it’s a real head game. Because you get there feeling pretty great about yourself, and next thing you know, you are one of 1,500 guitarists from around the world who love it just as much, if not more than you. Early on, I accepted that I was not going to be the best or even close to it, but that I could still have my own voice, my own personality. And if you have something unique to say, that’s worth listening to.
Rick: Last year, you released your debut album, Off and Running. What was the studio experience like and what lessons learned did you gain from the experience?
Ryan David Green: I recorded the majority of it during a week in an Airbnb in Prescott, Arizona. I had driven up there to drop my two boys off at summer camp, and holed up for a week with all of my gear. It was great. Totally isolated, working any hour of the day I wanted to.
Four days in, I had finished five songs, and on the sixth song I decided to try a different approach: recording the direct out from the pickup on my guitar and running it through a dreamy reverb I use live, then blending that together with a microphone on the guitar as well. It sounded incredible.
And it broke my heart because it meant that I had to rerecord everything I had to done those first three days with this new approach, because it just sounded so full and rich. So, that was a really interesting epiphany for me. I had always thought the live pickup system on an acoustic guitar was so inferior to mic’ing that it was useless, but it turned out they worked in tandem beautifully.
Rick: Typically, a songwriter has a lot of potential songs to put on an album, tell us about some of the tunes you chose to release, and what was it about them that you decided to go with them rather than some others that you would have liked to release?
Ryan David Green: The bulk of the material came from these pieces I was releasing every week on the Ryanhood Patreon page. I made it a goal to write a musical idea every week and share it with our patrons just so they could see the early stages of a song, thinking many of them would become Ryanhood songs.
But to my surprise, the more of them I did, the more I started to realize I was writing a solo guitar album. There were over 50 of these musings, as I called them. So the album is made up of a combination of my favorites of these, and also just the ones that I was able to flesh out and arrange as full pieces. I have many, many more favorites among them that I’m still finishing as well for the next album.
Rick: How did you end up being a Takamine guitars endorsee and what models have you found best suit your personal interests?
Ryan David Green: My bandmate Cameron has played a Takamine for pretty much the full duration of Ryanhood. A friend of ours, and fellow Takamine artist Jake Allen, made the formal introduction between us and the company, and it’s just been a great partnership ever since.
I use a Takamine P7DC for recording, which is a cutaway dreadnought that just sounds big and amazing, and live I use their thinline series, which is a smaller-bodied model that just feels so comfortable to wield on stage. I can play it for hours and not get tired. And honestly, their pickup system is wildly under-appreciated. We get compliments from sound techs at venues all the time.
Rick: What I liked about your guitar work was your restraint where you could be quick and flashy, but you were able to still keep the melodic lines at the center of the music, being grounded to the songs’ intent, but offering up flashy guitar that got positive nods from your audience. Does this come intuitively or are you more studied when developing your songs?
Ryan David Green: Thank you. When I’m writing, I’m searching for melodies and harmonies that move me, and figuring out how to make them happen within the confines of acoustic guitar, and the limits of my technique. Often times I’ll need to tune a string differently to access the note or chord voicing I want, and that will lead to alternative tunings, as well as work on expanding my own abilities in order to perform a song the way I hear it in my head.
Rick: What have been some of your more enjoyable experiences on stage and have you ever been charmed by an audience’s response to you and your music?
Ryan David Green: In 2024, Ryanhood was scheduled to play a couple of sets at the 30A Songwriter’s Festival, but Cameron, my bandmate, was sick and couldn’t perform.
My solo album wasn’t out yet, but I had the songs under my belt, so I decided I would play the sets solo. I was incredibly nervous, and worried about how the audience would react since they were expecting a vocal duo, and not a solo guitarist.
Amazingly, the sets were met with standing ovations. People got it. It felt like a rite of passage, and it gave me the confidence to keep forging ahead.
Rick: Touring can be a grind in an of itself, but how do you manage to keep your home life intact and strong over the course of years?
Ryan David Green: What works for me is trying to limit it to shorter tours. Going out for a weekend run of 3 or 4 shows, or stringing two weekends together for a 10 day run. Doing one of those a month, rather than 10 weeks out in one long chunk. I had to learn that the hard way though.
Rick: Have you explored music outside of your regular listening habits, as a way to extend your reach as a musician?
Ryan David Green: Yes, I try to discover new music as much as I can. Some it comes from touring, and bumping into other great artists first hand. I also teach guitar, and my students usually come to me with all kind of new music and artists that they want to learn, so that’s a really great way to find new music. Plus my kids, who are 12 and 14, have their own favorite artists. I try to keep an open mind to all of it.
Rick: Is there anyone who has been especially helpful or inspirational to you, who has helped you keep your head to the grindstone, in what is a tough and demanding business?
Ryan David Green: Probably my biggest musical supporter through the years has been my bandmate Cameron, who has been encouraging me all along the way, including the release of my solo album. I feel very lucky for that.
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