Both in his own right as a solo artist and as an integral member of Leeroy Stagger’s potent alt. country outfit, the Rebeltone Sound, Ryland spends considerable time traversing the highways and byways of Canada, the US, and Europe, reflecting on personal growth and empathetically noting all around him, absorbing the images, stories, events, and experiences of the road as he goes. Populated by real and imagined heroes and villains, the everyday and the extraordinary, the trials of life and matters of the heart, Ryland’s compositions span bygone days, the here and now, and what may yet be to come, both for himself and for us all.
“Ryland Moranz was phenomenal switching between instruments — mandolin, banjo, various guitars, and likely some other instruments I missed — like it was a game of musical chairs (and he was winning)." - Nick Samoli, Folk on the Road”
His latest release, XO, 1945, is a lyrically poetic, sonically earthy album of gritty roots rockers and moving, nostalgic balladry, propelled by Ryland’s clawhammer banjo, electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, mandola and harmonica, and intoned in a characterful voice recalling a young Steve Earle.
