Ryan Coughlin was born in Syracuse, NY on June 2nd 1986. At the ripe age of 7, he heard Aerosmith's "Janie's Got A Gun" in his Mother's car and immediately knew that music was what he wanted to do with his life. He began taking guitar lessons shortly after and never looked back.
His first outing with music was forming his first band, which eventually became South Hall Riot, in 8th grade at the age of 14. Calling themselves DroP12 and playing covers around CNY with players nearly twice his age, he began to make a noise in the local music scene.
Along with playing in a band, he also acted in musical productions throughout Middle/high School and with local stage companies around his hometown. He was seen in lead roles in such musicals as: "On Your Toes", "42nd Street" and "A Christmas Carol" to name a few.
While always being a singer first, Ryan also recorded all of the instruments on his first solo CD ".touched" (2003) and his 2nd release "Spring Break [EP]" (2004), along with writing all of the material on the releases. All of Coughlin's solo CD's and B-Sides leading up to 2009's "Make It Count" are available for free download from his MySpace page.
After releasing his solo material and graduating high school, he continued his endeavors with South Hall Riot (who became an all original band) and also formed the band "Heroes In Headphones", which landed a digital distribution deal through Quickstar Records. Their debut CD, "The Light Of Darkness", became available everywhere you can purchase music digitally including Verizon V-Cast. Ryan also released several hip-hop mixtapes under the alias of "$C-Money$" around this time and after regional tours with these projects, he once again focused his attention to his solo music.
After a short stint of playing lead guitar and singing back-up vocals in "For Sake Of Forward", he released his 3rd CD: "Make It Count" in July 2009 and rocked across the country in support of the release until that September including doing a mid-west tour with Ryan Cabrera, Clayton Senne, Backseat Goodbye & Plugin Stereo that August.
In 2010, he had been in the recording studio hard at work on his "So Ready [EP]", which hit your ears June 1st (2010), a day before his 24th birthday. Coughlin was offered 3 different indie label deals over the months prior to this release and decided to decline them and release all the new material himself in the form of 2 different EP's, the latter "ryPOD [EP]" being released Nov. 9th (2010).
After completing the recording of these 2 EP's around April of 2010, Ryan became the front man for the band "The Weakness" and once again hit the road on different tours around the country including "The Spring Break Tour" with "The Scarlet Ending" and a full US tour which ended with them following Vans Warped Tour 2010.
Ryan has been recording and touring for the better part of the last decade and has been seen sharing the stage with national acts such as The Rods, Honor Bright, Quietdrive, Mercy Mercedes, The Ready Set, Ryan Cabrera, Mike Dunn & The Kings Of New England, John Ralston, Eric Hutchinson, The Ultra Violent Lights & Steven Page (formerly of the Barenaked Ladies).
With "The Weakness" now being disbanded, Ryan is currently just released his FREE EP "songs in the key of Amy" and will be releasing one last solo EP "Stepping Stone" this fall before taking on a brand new sound with a brand new project. Stay tuned!
