We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ryan Bartlett a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ryan, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
The most meaningful project that I’ve worked on to date would have to be the “Failure To Yield” album by the heavy metal band Tyranis. Those guys have been great friends of mine for a long time and due to some extreme circumstances in their lives a few years ago they almost had to call it quits. To see them persevere, and for me to be trusted with handling all album visuals (cover art, graphic design, packaging layout, promotional material, etc.) was very satisfying. I’m incredibly proud of the album cover I created as well as the other elements that developed after that. In addition, we filmed and edited several scripted promotional videos – all DIY. As an overall project, it was a full team effort and was at times quite out of the range of what I typically do for a music release. It was a very rewarding experience. The album rips too.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Although I’ve had my fingers in quite a few pies in the realm of visual art, my main gig has been as an artist/designer for rock and metal bands. To briefly reiterate the significance of the aforementioned Tyranis album, those guys gave me my “break” so to speak. More accurately, they gave me a foot in the door. Years ago I had fallen out of touch with the band and due to a chance encounter at our local watering hole, Paul’s Cocktails in Orange, California, I got recruited to create the album cover for their debut, self-titled album. It would be my first cover, and as crude as it was, it got the wheels turning. Gradually more bands took notice and I started getting requests for more covers. That would then turn into merch design, CD/vinyl/tape layouts, gig flyers/posters, and so on.
I think what makes me particularly effective at this type of work is my ability to create a visual identity for something that only exists audibly, whether that’s an image manifesting in my head to fit the spirit, or me feeling that a collection of songs absolutely needs to be represented by a certain color combination. If a band pitches me an idea that on its face wouldn’t make an effective piece of art, I take pride in being able to massage and manipulate that idea to make it elevate the music, make the band happy, and have it be something that I can stand behind artistically.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I know for a fact that there are good, or not-so-good friends of mine that secretly look down their nose at me for dedicating my life to what they feel is a hobby. It’s a judgment that you can feel hanging in the air. It used to bother me but as time has gone on, I actually feel sorry for them a little bit. I’m on a mission from God, and I don’t mean that in a religious sense. I cannot help it. It’s an unquenchable thirst to create things. I’ve got a vault of ideas in my head of creations I’d be working on if I wasn’t conjuring visuals for bands. Don’t get me wrong, I get a lot of satisfaction from the music-related artwork, but it’s the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I’d be doing if I had unlimited time. Because of that, it is a huge treat when I have the opportunity to create work for a gallery, for example. The reason I’ve started to feel sorry for some of these people is simple – They don’t get it. They don’t know what it’s like to have that unstoppable drive to create. They don’t understand the excitement of having an idea materialize in your mind, and the subsequent quest to bring it into this reality. I cannot even begin to think what I’d do with myself on a daily basis if I wasn’t blessed with this obsession.
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
Fake. Fraud. Invalid. The opposite of art. They will be defunct and regarded as an embarrassing footnote in our timeline. Then again I could be wrong, in which case I’ll be answering to our future robot overlords.
In other words, You won’t see me launching my own NFT collection any time soon.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @ryaninthedust
- Other: [email protected]