Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: I'm here with Pat Ryan Key. Is that how you say it?
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Yes, ma'am.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for joining me.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: It was my pleasure. I appreciate you making the time.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Now, Pat, tell me about yourself in general.
You have been a recording artist for a while, but tell me, you know, how you got into music and the sort of music that you typically play.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Sure. You know, my whole existence becoming self aware, I was just immersed in music.
My father, he was just, he's just an avid music lover, and he's practically a human encyclopedia of music trivia for the past 80 years of the industry, you know, so it was just kind of became second nature. And I remember sitting in school and I'd always be distracted because I'd have a melody floating around in my head.
I remember one time I was in 9th grade and I was playing a drum solo on my school desk. And once I got out of my head, the whole class is staring at me. The teacher's like, bravo. Are you done?
It's just always been inherent and it's just in my spirit.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Sounds very natural for you.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
To some, it might seem like I take it for granted because a lot of the times, some of the most moving pieces I've ever composed literally felt like it came out of thin air, you know?
And I've learned to chase that, chase the spirit when it moves me, because nine times out of ten, I'll probably forget it if I don't document that moment.
But, you know, I've been playing music for over 20 years now, but I didn't really apply myself in the sense of pursuing it as a craft, if you will, until after I graduated from the University of Arkansas. And it's just a series of circumstances that kind of led to being able to record my own music and learn how to piece it together off the cuff. And sometimes I feel that's the best way for myself personally.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: So did you study music at the U of A?
[00:02:46] Speaker B: I did not. I studied business.
And I remember my first couple of years in college and my chemistry teacher called me a wizard. And calculus two kind of derailed my future, if you will.
I went into business instead, and I think it was good because it taught me how to think for myself and apply myself.
Just being wise, you know, with my money and my time, and I don't have any regrets. I'm going to go there, you know?
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of beneficial things about studying business and applying it to the music industry that you were becoming a part of in later?
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Excuse me here.
So tell me your first instruments and how you got into songwriting.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Well, when I was 14, I got a bass guitar, and at that time, it was like the height of new metal and alternative musics, stuntable pilots and soundgarden and death tones.
Nirvana, that whole wave just kind of ended, and it shifted into this more aggressive material. And naturally, I was just drawn to that. I had a best friend that lived down the street, and his father was a professional musician, and I would always make excuses to go to his house because he had a drum set and play on the guitars there. And instead of being outside or inside playing video games, I was hanging out with my musician friends, and my friend, his name is Pat Allison, he introduced me to blink 182 and incubus rage against the machine.
So we started jamming together. And then after school, I'd get home, plug in my bass guitar, and I'd be practicing and learning all the songs that I loved, you know.
But then I remember it was 10th grade, and I met another good friend of mine, Johnny Ayala. And he would see me, you know, kind of just air drum looking like a dork. And he was like, hey, I actually have a drum set. And so we played Nirvana all the time. And that kind of helped me develop my skills in terms. You know, there's a lot of coordination using different parts of your limbs and different timing coordination. And so I think just as a child growing up and being around that music, my brain absorbed the melodies, and I never really paid attention to the lyrics. And so it kind of helped me. It felt a little more natural performing instruments.
And I found that if I didn't let me backtrack a little bit, you know, I started out in the trombone and learned how to read music and transcribe what you're seeing on paper to actually, you know, performing it. But I found that rock music, the less I thought about it, the more natural it came in the performance. And so it's kind of this weird twist, almost like statistics, kind of throws you off, because it's a little bit different way of thinking about numbers.
And I just started running with it and went from the bass to the drums, and I always had these melodies in my mind. And so I picked up a guitar and taught myself of the guitar so I could turn those ideas into put pen to paper, you know, and kind of just has taken on its own beast over the years. You know, I'm starting point a on the bass guitar to now being a songwriter and just a composer and arranger, you know, I don't often get to play it bass or drums as often as I would like these days.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Okay, well, yeah, those are different skills, but it's really interesting that you were able to transition from one to the other and find your strength as songwriter and producer. Did you say?
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yes? Man, when I first started producing my own music, I really liked to have everything laid out and mapped and charted out. You know, I remember seeing one of my favorite bands growing up, and they literally had a song placed on a whole chart and line, you know, rows and columns and. Okay, by this part of the song, this movement, we're going to introduce this element. And that really, my mind just completely resonated with that. It just felt I geeked out on it, you know? And sometimes they say, you know, a songwriter isn't the best performing artist or the best performing artist. Can't write a song to save their life. And I feel very grateful to be able to harness both and just have fun.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
So tell me how that experience has gone the past few years and introduce to me your personal backstory that you alluded to, how your perspective has changed in recent years and how that's affected your music.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Sure.
After I graduated college, I moved in with another good friend of mine coming out of high school.
He had just purchased some home recording equipment, and as soon as I moved in, you know, he was working for the man, and they changed the schedule a second shift. So I'd come home, he'd be going to work, and I just. The world was my oyster. And he taught me a couple of little basics on how to get off the ground and just use the tools that he had available. And naturally, I was still in that hard rock mindset. And that's how I made my first record. And my friend Pat, who introduced me to the bands ten years prior that we all grew up with, he kind of joined the fold and we worked on it together, and it was very much of a team effort, even though all players involved weren't. We weren't a band, you know, we just kind of had fun with it, had no scope of what it would lead to where I am today. You know, we were just simply passing the time and enjoying ourselves and. But that project just took off so fast. I think we were too young, have it too soon, and we just didn't quite really know what. What we had. And we won an award, and we were playing, performing all the time, and.
But, you know, people grow older, you know, they change and move different paths in life. And we all kind of had creative differences, and we just decided to pursue our own thing. And that was an interesting time, because went from having a band to being a one guy, and then you. You have to. I still need to be playing music. I want to keep the lights on. And so I started playing covers a lot because that was kind of the outfit at the time in this area, you know, there wasn't a lot of. There wasn't an infrastructure that supported a full band, per se, you know, and I. So that was neat because that kind of helped me gain more experience on learning how to be an entertainer, if you will, and you're a one man team, but it just didn't feel right playing your own music. This is this inherent drive, and you want to be the best at it, and it's yours. It's your baby.
So as I was coming to this realization and trying to figure out, okay, how can I work smarter now?
Boom. I found out that I had brain cancer.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: And.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: It was a weird thing.
It was a year long process, but it seemed like I was the only one that really knew something was wrong. They say, you know yourself best.
I just kind of. My family and I were trying to dig into what was going on with me to try to understand and see if we could find a solution. And long story short, you know, I feel like it was a blessing in disguise in hindsight, you know, because it kind of did help me shift my priorities where I was naturally trying to move towards. And that was kind of a bridge that helped me move on from point a to point b. And so that's kind of been my priority. Now. My initiative is just to pursue my art and try to share that with the world, because everybody, they all know Mary Jane's last dance and, you know, call me the breeze or still love those songs, you know, but there's something about being able to share your own art that really moves me.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Can I ask what.
What some of the things you were experiencing were when you realized that something was wrong, that you should be seeking a diagnosis?
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Well, it all started when I was performing, and I'd be singing and really feeling the moment, and the crowd would be into it, and all of a sudden, I'd get this frog in my throat and ride into the mic, and it would just be so embarrassing. And I was like, man, I gotta see what this is. Cause I can't continue doing that.
I thought it was maybe something I was doing. I wasn't warming up properly or, you know, etcetera. So I progressively developed into more extreme symptoms.
What started out with, like, just a gunk in my throat became.
Started experiencing vertigo.
I started having migraines, and I never suffered headaches my entire life up to that point. So it's kind of like, wow, I just went zero to 100 really fast.
And once I began, started experiencing those symptoms, my primary care physician was like, well, maybe we should schedule you with an MRI at this point. It was like, six months prior before we actually discovered the tumor. And long story short, I ran into a family member. Hadn't seen her in years. And, I mean, she was, bombshell, just completely beautiful. And I didn't recognize her. I saw her children. They were my cousins. I was like, oh, what's going on? And she was like, hi. I was like, oh, my gosh. And she's like, yeah. Didn't recognize me. Could you? And I'm like, no, I'm sorry. I felt really bad, you know, and.
But she had just had her second brain operation for a brain tumor, and I started sharing my story with her, and she was like, well, if I could be of any testimony, don't put it off.
Keep digging and try to find out what is going on with you, because you just might never know what it could be. And she ended up passing away from her third operation.
Terrible thing, you know?
But when I had my mris, they couldn't detect anything. My tumor was still undetectable, and.
But that was when the symptoms really geared up. So at the end of the run, before we knew I had brain cancer, I looked like a lush drunk. You know, any step I would take, I'd be going three or four steps to the left or right.
The symptoms got so bad, the migraine, I couldn't drive anymore. It was affecting my sleep because I couldn't lay down. And by the grace of God, we got a last minute appointment with a neurologist. This is five months later, and originally he wanted to schedule me out several months in advance at a different time, but he got that last minute cancellation, and my now wife and my mother were just like, you know, really hard up trying to get this figured out. And immediately upon seeing me walk, he just knew. He's like, oh, I'm going to go ahead and schedule for an MRI tonight. And this was a Friday evening. Seven at night.
Yes. Sure enough, they found it. In that time five to six months, it had grown to the size of a golf ball. They're like, we are rushing emergency surgery right now. And it was just kind of like, can't prepare for it. I mean, you're in the moment, and you got to do what you got to do. And back. Skin to the wall.
It's an extremely rare case of cancer for an adult. It's predominantly found in children. And so that said, there was less than 100 documented cases worldwide, and they didn't know how to help me, and, but they rushed me into emergency surgery.
All the odds were against me, 50 50 chance to survive the operation, and if I survived, it'd be more than a million chance that I'd be the same again, walk or talk, let alone play music. And so it was just kind of, like a lot thrown at me at once. And I feel like that.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: What were you thinking when they tell you all of this?
[00:17:58] Speaker B: I felt like a little tiny ant, you know, all ounce or sense of control gone. You know, you just kind of, like, had a complete loss. And I was very fortunate to have all my family there when the news broke out. You know, I think having them there to help help me get through that, you know, either to hold me up and support me and love on me, I think that's another great blessing. I try not to take for granted, you know?
So, I mean, at the end of the day, just with that experience as a whole, you know, I just had an out of body near death experience, and thankfully, I came through unscathed. And because of that, you know, I definitely do my best to try to not take anything for granted.
Been cancer free since 2019 and grateful still be here.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: That's really amazing. I'm really glad that it worked and that you came out with the same abilities that you had going in. That's really wonderful.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I was one. My wife, when I woke up, she handed me some drumsticks. I was like, playing drums in bed. I'm like, Chris Lord, I still got it. You know, I was really, you know, I didn't know what to expect. And there's a lot of nurses throughout the whole hospital that kept coming into the room to visit with me. They're calling me a miracle boy. And I was just, everything was like at that moment, black and white and then on, you know, always kind of been naturally all or nothing. But right then and there, that's when I knew, like, it's not.
You don't have to get so deep in the weeds with life, you know, life is what you make it. And I was totally able to understand that then.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: That is a blessing to have a different perspective like that all of a sudden.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, it really took me back.
It was really like a bull by the horns before trying to just live my best life every day and every moment. And now just trying to be smart with my time and be wise and really enjoy life and just not take anything for granted because it really is short flash before my eyes just like that, completely unexpected. And so to be able to still be here, you know, my goal, ultimately, is to help children who fall victim to such circumstances and have personal struggles, you know, health wise or just, you know, general with the hand they were dealt with in life. And it kills me that they have to go through that. I couldn't imagine being a parent and finding out that your child had a life threatening ailment. And as an adult, I wasn't given a chance to grieve about it. And I'm really thankful for that, too, because I know if I had time to think about it, we might not be here talking today.
And out of that, too, music still came to me naturally, and it's really nice to be able to still have that. And I'll still wake up in the middle of the night, and I'll either be dreaming, I'll write the lyrics down, or, you know, the music's all around me, and I try to really rein it in sometimes.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
Has your music changed at all since. Since going through that?
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Sure.
I think. I think it was a natural transition, you know, going from a full rock band to being a one man band at the time. Through that period in my life, I met my. My now father in law, and he kind of really helped me find myself again.
He is a hell of a musician, and he's been performing live for over 50 years of his life, and he taught me a lot and more. So just through experience, you know, we're not really. Sit down. Hey, teach me how to do this. We've just learned by performing together. So the past nine years, we performed over 400 shows together, and we really just threw ourselves on the stage and learned how to work together. And I feel like we've come up with a really cool and unique sound, and that's my passion project. We're called Pal, and we just released an ep this past April, and at that point, we just kind of released a couple of singles, but we really consider ourselves performing artists, and.
But I also have this other side that feel like I need to scratch the itch, and it's more of a more soul influenced music.
My trademark is I'm being a passionate vocalist, and that's something I really wanted to embrace and this newfound life, if you will. And, yeah, it's kind of weird, because the songs kind of went from this hard rock. All of a sudden it was flown into this more rhythm and blues and trying to develop a vibe and a feel to the music instead of just shooting from the hip, if you will, you know?
[00:23:57] Speaker A: So I think that kind of shows the change in your intention.
I think that kind of mirrors it.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: It strikes me that you had, like, you have a change of purpose a bit, and that your music has changed, too.
To me, that's.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: There's a lot of truth in that.
Wow, you kind of just blew me away.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like at this stage of my life, I'm almost, at the first time I'm doing this again.
And as cliche as it might sound, getting a second chance again, I'm definitely trying to really embrace it for what it's worth, instead of just flying with the wind. And I've really been blessed to start working with Neil Greenhall in Bentonville. He has a great iron studio, and he just embraced me with open arms, invited me into the place, and I don't know what it was, but I felt at home there. And I feel like I really was able to blossom.
And he embraced what I was able to offer, and he helped me grow into who I am today. You know, I could write songs before and compose an arrangement, but getting to work with him and his team really kind of opened my eyes to the possibilities. And it's been a great learning experience. And we've amassed a little collection now. I've got a 6th song coming out soon that I recorded there and really excited about it.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Well, would you tell me about your latest release? I know you have to go in just a couple of minutes, but I'd love to hear about your song truth, if you don't.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Truth. Yes, ma'am.
It kind of spontaneous, spontaneously presented itself one evening last year. And my father and I, you know, we always went back and forth writing lyrics together. His father was a songwriter, naturally, I was a third generation songwriter. But long story short, he sent me these two stanzas, and the words just kind of slapped me really hard, and it was something fierce. And I found in those type of moments, like I noted earlier, I need to capitalize on the inspiration. And so I wrote the verse and the chorus for truth and built the chord structure around the words that flowed and it felt well, you know. So after taking a week crafting the arrangement of the song, my wife jokingly shared some words of what would become the pre chorus. So at the end of the journey. It became a family affair, a first, if you will, involving, you know, my father and my wife. And I don't take that lightly.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds really special.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it was great.
I don't know what to expect. You know, I just tried to embrace it for what it is and really drive it home, and it was an awesome experience. And trying to think back, it wasn't. It was a different vibe from the previous record that I made with Neil.
He let me run with it and drive the ship, and this time, you know, he's like, let's see what I can do. I'm like, all right, let's go. And I feel like this one's going to hit different.
And it comes out September 20.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Well, great. And where can people find it?
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Well, it'll be available worldwide in the digital realm, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube. But you want to go to my website, patry.com, you'll be able to pick your. Your poison on how you like to listen to music. And we'll also have a music video coming out September 19 as well, hopefully build up the hive and we can all celebrate together.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Sounds great. I'll keep an eye out for it.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: No problem. Thanks for having me today, April. It was a pleasure.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Thank you. Path.
