Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Ryan Taylor.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jason. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I love Los Angeles, I’ve lived here for seven years, and it’s always beautiful to return to a place brimming with possibility, the “City of Angels.”
Since moving from upstate NY, I’ve experienced some moments I can only describe as heavenly, from selling out the legendary Hollywood House of Blues, to make a record with Darryl Swann, the Grammy-winning producer with a generously loving heart. I’ve worked with countless other industry moguls from Snoop Dogg, T-Pain, Lil Wayne and Nikki Minaj to Mayer Hawthorne, Eagles of Death Metal, Iggy Pop and Vulfpeck. This weekend I got to warm up the stage for platinum artist Ryan Cabrera, and the other artists he invited, including John Vesely of Secondhand Serenade.
I remember trying to style my hair like Ryan in high school to get the girl I liked to notice me. I also remember reading a Secondhand Serenade interview on MySpace around the same time. I spent a lot of time on MySpace and AIM back then, it was an escape from a turbulent home life where I spent even more time alone in my room, playing guitar. I knew that music was my way out of the poverty and loneliness I was experiencing. I just got to warm the stage up for my teenage idols. It makes me want to shout back to teenage-version-me “Dude, how cool is that?”
Music is the medicine, the great connector. I just had to do the work… I’m still doing the work. It was hard growing up in a family with ten siblings. My mother worked full-time to support us. I was five years old when she gave my father “the boot.” He just couldn’t put the bottle down. The next Christmas, my dad, gave me a classical acoustic guitar with nylon strings, he later told me he bought it at a greenhouse for $25. I played it until the bridge snapped off… so he gave me another.
He was always so supportive of all my interests, driving from his home in Rome, NY to take me to baseball games and practice every week in Glenville, over two hours away. He took me to my first concert, Beatlemania. I was hooked, I jumped on stage after the show, at my father’s suggestion, to grab a loose guitar pick. I went home and tried to learn “Nowhere Man” by ear. I was probably around eight years old. That song still gets me every time… we all play the role of “nowhere man” here and there, making all our nowhere plans for nobody.
I was 19 when John Mayer asked to see my nipples. I had just taken radical action toward my dreams by walking out on my job as a waiter in NY because they wouldn’t give me the time off I needed to go on John’s “Mayercraft Carrier.” I told my boss I was going. He said “You’re just gonna go?” to which I responded, “I’m just gonna go.” Once onboard, I was mesmerized by Colbie Caillat. We shared a dance in the disco, and John handed me a shot of patron. He asked to see my nipples and didn’t seem to care I was 19. I came home to Albany, a different person, and I knew it.
I lost the keys to my apartment and slept on my front porch the night I returned. Mayer hosted another cruise the next year, and I got to perform on the Lido deck stage with members of O.A.R. and Guster. I met Adam Gardner during the beach cleanup before the cruise set sail. I gave him a sticker, and we talked about the music industry. He told me to make the most out of the opportunity the internet now provided for artists, as it was leveling the playing field. Anyone willing to put in the work could now have a sustainable music career.
The last day of the cruise there was a jam on the main deck, and I asked Adam to play. He handed me a Les Paul and the next thing I knew I was standing next to Richard On, cranking a solo to Sweet Home Alabama. Every opportunity I’ve ever had came from someone holding the door open for me.
That experience became fuel for me to have the courage to move to LA, and do the same for others. It wasn’t until breaking my neck, facing death at 21 years old, and spending several months in stillness, that I decided to drop any “plan b” and dedicate myself to my life’s passion, creating music to feel less alone, and working with artists who share a positive message. The doctor told me that if I were to be pushed in a crowd, or rear-ended in a car, that I would likely die, so I didn’t leave the house. I took my painkillers sparsely to avoid forming a habit, after seeing so many of my friends become addicted to them. Sometimes the pain was unbearable.
Other times, I would sit at the piano in my neck brace and write songs, peaceful songs, songs of hope for brighter days. It didn’t require much movement, and I didn’t have to turn my head. Playing the piano helped take my mind off the pain. I would disappear in major 7th chords. Sometimes I still do. Once the neck brace was off, I had $14k in medical bills to pay off, so I took a job at a local adolescent psychiatric hospital. My own mental state was poor, I had gained some weight and reached 210lbs.
I was very depressed, and I thought this job could help my situation. It eventually did, when another mental health assistant came in to teach the kids a meditation. She said “Close your eyes and imagine the slightest, tiniest, brightest bead of light in the center of your mind, focus on the pure light, and let it grow with all the most pleasant things you can see, smell, taste, and hear. Hear the laughter of those you love” and so on. She said to let it grow until your imagination is full of loving, warm light. That night I went home and tried it, I heard roars applause, I smelled the sweat of the crowd, saw the bright lights shining down on my guitar. It felt so real.
I’m not sure what made me do it, but then I started to try and forget, or erase, everything I had ever learned. I “forgot” how to play guitar, the alphabet… I erased my name, the faces of my friends and family until I was empty, completely empty. The next day I wrote a song called “Soap Opera.” I had to leave the mental hospital after the job required me to pin down a traumatized 14-year-old boy who had recently been sexually abused by his step-father. He was acting out, and the protocol was to “call a code,” restrain the child, and a nurse would come to inject them with a sedative. He kept yelling “not the butt, anywhere but the butt.”
The nurse pulled his pants down and stuck the needle into his little bum. It broke my heart. I couldn’t be a part of that system anymore. I told my boss I was moving to LA. So two weeks later my girlfriend, Lisa, and I packed her red Dodge Neon and drove to Los Angeles. We had no plan, no jobs lined up, we just got in the car and drove, nervous as hell, until it was too late to turn around… then the trip started to become fun. We spent our first year in Hollywood, where I was hit head-on by an SUV at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, among the stars of the Walk of Fame.
The impact cracked my sternum open, also breaking my collar bone, and tearing my right labrum and bicep. This is when I found yoga, and the power of deep, intentional breath-work. I was immobilized once again, with a grand piano in the living room: same story, new city. I wrote a bunch of songs, and when the case settled, I got $12k and dropped half of it on a 6-month lease on a studio space off La Brea. If you build it, they will come, I thought, and they have. Sound Soirée was born in April of 2013.
Since then, I’ve worked with artists such as Don Peake (Guitarist for Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, The Monkeys, The Wrecking Crew), Orianthi, and Snoop Dogg. I produced a record (Creation Creator) with Darryl Swann, who won a Grammy for producing Macy Gray’s “I Try.” I can distinctly remember watching the music video at my sister’s apartment when I was like 14, thinking, what a great tune! It’s amazing how all these things come full circle, life’s synchronicities blow my mind… there’s a force at work here that no one could ever fully comprehend.
In 2015, I helped launch Teragram Ballroom, in DTLA, later named “Best New Music Venue” by LA Weekly. I was stage manager for its first couple years of operation and still fill in from time to time. I worked with artists there including Gary Numan, Iggy Pop, Reggie Watts, Eagles of Death Metal, and Guster once again. One of Chris Cornell’s last performances with Prophets of Rage was at Teragram. Jack Black and I sang harmonies together in the parking lot that night. We even did Vulfpeck’s Thrill of the Arts album release party, which has become one of my favorite albums of all time.
I had dinner with Theo Katzman, and we talked about God most of the time. I’m so grateful to have these stories to look back on. It reminds me even a “poor” boy, the only kid in class whose family couldn’t afford a snack for snack-time (sometimes the cafeteria lady would “miscount” and I’d get the “extra” chocolate milk) can create a better life for himself. It’s become my mission to use my position to inspire the underdog. Music is the most powerful transformative agent, it can turn the deepest pain, or sense of grief, into something beautiful, something to be celebrated. Music should be respected, we have to be careful about what we do with it.
Some of the music today is really messing with the minds of the youth. They say musicians are the most dangerous because they hang out with all kinds of people, transcending class barriers. On any given day you can catch me sitting on the sidewalk, playing guitar for nothing, or backstage in a suit at the Fonda Theater. I get a kick out of playing both roles. It’s important to me that I don’t lose touch with that little boy, deciding between a bowl of cereal or ramen noodles for dinner. If only I could show that boy what he gets to have today…
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
My greatest struggle has been myself, my mindset. I took that job at the mental hospital just to try and “learn” my way out of the confusion and mild misery. If only I could count the hours spent reading self-help books and listening to Tony Robbins. I’ve spent more money on self-development in the past year than I’ve spent on food. They say therapists have the most therapists, and my coaches have coaches of their own.
I’ve been working with several of them to develop a curriculum for artists to follow to get out of their own way and find fulfillment in their art. It turns out that the difference is really just in the sharing.
A mind left to its own devices will soon consume itself. My friend and founder of The MenTour, Juvan Langford, says “vulnerability pays the bills” and I agree. Once I started being radically honest and radically transparent with those around me, life started working itself out.
You’ve got to trust, surrender to the Universe, aka “God” aka “Higher Power” aka “Life Force.” If you try and go it alone, you don’t stand a chance. Easier said than done, but the best word I know for this is “pronoia” – the universe is conspiring FOR you!
So, as you know, we’re impressed with LA Sound Soirée – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Sound Soirée is a full-service artist development and production company. We also do live events and publishing. Our mission is to help artists with powerful messages develop profitable business models to make an impact in areas of the world that matter most to them. Starting with their local communities. We’ve organized or assisted in dozens of non-profit events.
The first one was April 2014, in partnership with my friend Brian Ripps, who was running for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society “Man of the Year.” Brian lit a fire under me, and we brought every artist I knew on board, from musicians to painters. We had 14 bands on the bill and raised a couple of thousand bucks for blood cancer research. It was awesome!
Since then, we’ve partnered up with several organizations raising money for the American Cancer Society, Unlikely Heroes (rescuing children from sex-trafficking), Puerto Rican disaster relief, and even Syrian refugees. For our five year celebration, we launched a monthly subscription-based service for artists. It’s like non-exclusive management, which looks more like assisted self-management with accountability coaching.
We’ve created a community for artists to work with industry professionals who’ve seen the road ahead and can help less experienced musicians navigate the ever-changing music industry. This includes studio time to produce new music and videos, booking gigs and even tours, PR, merch store development, coaching calls and much more.
Like I said before, every opportunity I ever had was from someone holding the door open for me, so that’s what we do for up-and-coming artists. We’re a one-stop shop to blow up your music career. There’s no other company out there like this, and I attribute that to the talent of the team.
It’s an incredible community of artists and artist managers. We’ve taken independent artists from karaoke bars to 70,000 person festival stages, it’s really something special.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I’m really proud of keeping a recording studio open for six years in Los Angeles. Most small businesses fail in the first year or two, and the music industry is tougher than most. My buddy Tony Glaser once looked me in the eyes at something like 4:00 in the morning and said: “You want to do anything, it takes a whole lotta somethin’.”
I’ve been through the wringer a few times, broken many bones, and faced death at least twice. Something changes in your chemistry when you really believe little “you” may be coming to an abrupt end. You get one shot.
When Jonathan Mahan handed me the keys to the empty lockout where I built my studio, he said “fail as fast as you can,” and that takes some serious balls, to put yourself on the line, and get back up when you fall hard. Nick Lippman (Ryan Cabrera’s manager) said to me (on the cruise last weekend over Wasabi Martini’s at the sushi bar) “you push ahead, and recede, push again, recede… and that’s the way it goes.”
One day, I’d like to see Sound Soirée become an international franchise empowering artists in every major city of the world to create profitable business models, independently. Surely there will be a few setbacks from now til then, but it’s the only failure when you give up, I don’t plan on giving up.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lasoundsoiree.com
- Phone: 310-426-8428
- Email: [email protected], [email protected]
- Instagram: @nodrinksonthepiano, @soundsoiree
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soundsoiree/, https://www.facebook.com/JayTayLIVE/
- Twitter: @jaytaylive
- Other: jasonryantaylor.com
Image Credit:
Suzanne Sami, Lisa Conto, Anton Fair
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