I'm Rick Ryan and I never even wanted to be a stinkin DJ to begin with. I moved to Nashville in 1985 (20 years old) and worked as a musician in clubs. Got married to a girl much prettier than I deserved in 1988 and kept working part-time as a musician at all kinds of goofy gigs. In 97 I landed my first Grand Ole Opry gig. Got to back a bunch of over-the-hill, has-been artists until that gig finally died (completely) in 2011. Beginning around 2007 I'd transitioned from Opry to the Broadway club scene, 3-4 nights per week and finally to a single act musician. On a 40th birthday gig in Atlanta I found out that they didn't want the crap I was spewing and wanted Sinatra instead. I started downloading cuts from Amazon and the clients loved it. After that I got to looking into this whole DJ-thing, which all my musician brothers hated with a passion, and found out I could make an extra $300 a night if I just put aside my ego and added "DJ" to my business card.
Realizing I was a fish out of water, I started sniffing for DJ gigs on craigslist and was advertising outside of the Nashville area. My first wedding was a 350-guest event in St. Louis at a military base in November, 2008 for which I was paid $600 (and yes I did it with a Bose L1 and yes I paid my own gas and hotel out of that):
I kept looking for (and working) gigs outside of Nashville on purpose. I figured I didn't want to mess up my own market with any mistakes I made. It only took about a year. At the time, I was bottom-feeding and thought $400 was big money but I was able to get enough confidence to start taking local gigs in 2009. Over the next several years I started adding other services like uplighting, photobooth and now photography and expanded to a multi-rig operation. Made plenty of mistakes with a few crappy DJs but have gotten my company to averaging 80-100 events per year and I probably work 50-55 of those personally. I have discovered that there is a lot more satisfaction and responsibility in DJing over playing in a band but admit I do sometimes miss those days, especially the bigger artist gigs.
I often use a term "It's always about the money" a lot and realize that many here think I'm only a money-grubber. I'm not. I love nothing better than giving a bride the event of her dreams but I also realize that without making money at it, I can't stay at it long term and after all is said and done I bust my can 6-7 days per week so that I can provide better for my wife and 2 children. It's the least I can do for them. I realize that I quite often come off as brash, an arsehole, jerk, prick, dickhead, etc. but my spirit is to be helpful to anyone who wants it. I want to continue learning as well as sharing what little bit of knowledge I've gotten along the way.
