Lady Muse/Music has seduced Ryan Heflin all of his life.
There was an undeniable attraction from early on that stayed true throughout all of life’s phases and shapeshifts.
From sitting and singing “The Land Before Time Theme Song” as a tiny tot next to his dad on the piano bench,
to later, in high school, discovering the curious effects an emo song a la guitar can have on the fairer sex:
“I thank my 16 year old self every day for learning to sing and play guitar; definitely one of the best decisions I ever made” chuckles Heflin,
“I must give a lot of gratitude to the female race for so effectively moving me to a lifelong passion for music and creativity, amongst other things. What better motivation is there really?”
From flirting with doing music professionally while half-heartedly applying to graduate schools for psychology post-college,
paying dues in divey bars and “getting naked in public in awkward phases of development” as he puts it,
to getting the bedazzling opportunity to play the character of clifftop oceanside Gatsby at The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel as their in-house musician for 8 memoir-worthy years;
slinging solo acoustic covers, fighting off cougars of the OC and international variety, and flying to beautiful places like the Bahamas and Hawaii to play weddings and corporate events.
To here and now, with the stirrings of the soul loud, wailing without compromise:
“Sing your songs and speak your truth man! Tell it all, be it all! Sound your barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world! ya dig??”
(doesn’t everybody’s soul speak like that?)
writing and recording his music with albums like “Where Does the Wonder Go?”, taking to the stages with his transcendentalist band
and (finally) giving himself over fully to the Mystery and magic he’s been dancing with all his life:
“I’ve fallen in love with it”, he confides, “Music chose me. I know it. I was so scared of it because I loved it so much.
It's been this force, this presence, this guide in my life, like a lover, that--through our brilliant, poetic, rollercoaster love story--has made me the man I’ve always wanted to be,
has made me choose my love for her over my fear and ego, and in doing so, has made me find the infinite love and beauty within myself.
She has set me free, and given me a life beyond what I could have ever imagined; dreamlike and yet so perfectly poetically “me” (but of course).”
