Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Haft.
Hi Ryan, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up in Miami and started playing guitar at around age 8. My older cousin introduced me to Nirvana and Green Day and Metallica and I became obsessed with guitar. I started my first band in Middle School and started playing at music venues such as The Chili Pepper, Roses, Fantasy Land, Kaffe Krystal and others around 9th grade and then throughout highschool. Throughout school I always played in Jazz Band and picked up playing bass as there were always like 5 guitarist and no bassists and I wanted to play all day everyday.
One of the early bands actually went to do a recording at a studio owned by my drummers Moms bandmate and i was enamored with the studio environment. At around 21 after some failed recordings at other studios I embarked on collecting gear and setting out to start recording my musical projects on my own in search of the sound we were unable to achieve at various commercial facilities. After about 2 years making demos for friends and myself I reached out to The Dungeon in North Miami. This was THE rock n roll studio in South Florida that I had visited in highschool while my friends band was recording. I basically just pitched that I record in peoples houses and would love to get into a real studio to intern or anything at all. Within two weeks I had keys and was a staff engineer at the Dungeon. I worked there for several years, and was touring with my then band Capsule before leaving the Dungeon to start a studio in a big house with another engineering friend of mine. Around this time my studio partner (Jon Nunez) had a band called Torche that needed a Front of House Engineer as they were doing some big tours in big venues. I began touring with them mixing Front of House and learning the live sound Ropes. I toured extensively with them for years while making records while at home for various bands. This later led to doing front of house for bands like Red Fang, Big Business, OM, High on Fire, and currently has me working with Snarky Puppy.
In 2023 I won a Latin Grammy for Mixing Chucho Valdes and Paquito de rivera “I Missed You Too!”
I currently own and operate a Studio in Allapatah called Sunburn Sound that largely caters to independent artists of the Rock, Metal, Punk, Indie varieties.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Early in my recording career I had a short job working as an assistant in the Recording Program at Miami Dade College and my boss had warned me that this would be a hard path to take. He wasnt wrong in the fact that choosing this career path is filled with a ton of uncertainty. Ive largely worked as a Freelancer which requires alot of hustling and chasing gigs and chasing people to get paid. Alot of months of slow work followed by being overloaded followed by slow. I think anyone who works for themselves experiences these things and my path was no different. I think maybe im too stubborn to not push through all of these things and find the joy in the journey itself
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I think I answered a good amount of this in the initial bio. Im Producer/Engineer/Mixer who specializes in working with bands of metal/punk/indie variety which is a pretty rare niche in a place like Miami, FL. Ive played in bands Capsule and Wrong (Relapse Records) who have extensively toured the US and Europe. Im the guitarist for both of these bands and have produced their records as well.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I played alot of sports as kid from baseball, basketball to hockey which is the one that I played the longest. Ive always been a people person and an outgoing kid. I found music and guitar at age 8 and became obsessed with it to this day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ryanhaft.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryan_haft/
