We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rom Ryan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rom , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

The word creative applies no less meaningfully to how you make a living as a musician, than it does to the process of making music. Every day you should try to do at least one thing that can make you income that day, or has the potential to create future income. As a musician you are an entrepreneur whether you want to be or not. This is while you are honing your skills and creating the product you will be selling, the music itself and how you’ll present it. In my case I have things I write for the sake of creating income and things I write and record simply because I love the compositions. While I’m happy to share them, I accept that others may not feel as strongly about them as I do. It’s a balancing act between commerce and art.

I’ve been a full time performing musician for 24 years, a part-time performing musician for even longer and figuratively speaking nobody knows me. I’ve had music played in hundreds of TV shows and sold many thousands of CDs. I say that to let others know you can find your niche and have a rewarding life in the arts without having the fame that we customarily associate with success in these fields.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I arrived in Houston from Los Angeles on the way to Rio to open a nightclub with a friend, I had left a position as Music Director of a club in LA called The Stock Exchange. All I had with me at the time, was an acoustic guitar, friends here in Houston, as well as a prior history with the city. I decided to rededicate myself to music, and let my buddy go to Rio, I stayed here in my adopted home. Houston had an artistic freedom to it that I found really attractive at the time. I applied myself to the acoustic guitar composing and practicing for many hours a day, it resulted in my first CD Mysteria which was well received nationally. I was playing all original music and it was concerts, a hand full of clubs, and thankfully my guitar students, who taught me as much as I taught them. An icon of Houston fashion Mickey Rosemarin who is no longer with us hired me for my first private event ( I didn’t even know such a thing was possible ) and that opened up a way of generating income that I had never considered.

In 1999 myself and Terrence Karn formed Moodafaruka. We expanded the size of the band, created 3 CDs and while doing only original music found our way into festivals and private events. At the time we made the cd’s we had no idea what would become of them but through experience we discovered, if we were playing any place public, we were going to have people lined up to buy them. We became the mall band at Houston’s Galleria and played almost every weekend there. Something I don’t think any other band ever was considered for. More people had seen us in that capacity and we sold more CDs there than all our other events combined.  This went on until around 2008.

The business has changed so much, you have to be able to perform live now and while our world fusion sound was fresh at the time, lots of others have joined in since. We had the same founding members for many years but the new band members have now been together longer than the founding members were. CDs are a thing of the past, streaming is not artist friendly, musicians are having to be more creative than ever to make music their business. You can’t have opportunity without preparation, so my recommendation is always be working on your repertoire, while seeking opportunities. You have to walk with blind faith sometimes before the fog clears and you see the path ahead.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

If you want to support a musical artist download their music don’t just listen to it on a streaming service. At minimum subscribe to their channel.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

At this point I’m just making the most interesting beautiful music I know how to do. I’m not concerning myself at all with fitting into a genre, I’m making music as art, as freely as I can, if others discover it, all the better, if they get something out of it, all the better, but if they don’t, I will have achieved what I set out to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.moodafaruka.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rom_ryan/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rom.ryan.94/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rom-ryan-874900a/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCro7qL98FQQVZx8fzk_5Wtg
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/user/Moodafaruka1/playlists https://www.facebook.com/moodafarukamusic https://open.spotify.com/artist/4OyFi5r96kXpmzPhwovrPu