Ryan Bingham Biography

 

Lone Star Music financed his first album "Dead Horses" in 2006. After its success, Bingham was signed to Lost Highway Records. He then made his major label debut with "Mescalito" on October 2, 2007, which was produced by former Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford. The album received mainly positive reviews. While some critics have claimed Bingham's songwriting is clichéd, others laud his talents. Texas Music Magazine has opined that "Bingham talks and sings with a whiskey-and-cigarette throat that screams hard living. Hard in a way that can make a 25-year-old sound like a 50-year-old Tom Waits." Bingham's songwriting depths are not mere fabrications. His creative expressions are likely derived partially from a knockabout life on the bull-riding rodeo circuit for several years (he began bullriding in his late teens).  A life of semi-permanence was already the norm to a young man who grew up in a fractured family that moved around often, from Hobbs, NM to Spring, TX and Stephenville, TX and a multitude of other dusty small towns in the southwest.

 

Bingham has appeared as a guest on Bob Harris's Country Show on the BBC's Radio 2. Daryl Easlea, writing for the BBC's folk and country review, said "Bingham will be one of the names to drop in 2008, with an album that sounds as if it's been unearthed from 1972." Rolling Stone magazine gave Mescalito three out of five stars and wrote that Bingham "earns his sepia-toned album cover with a dusty wood-and-steel sound, and despite being twenty-five, sings like Steve Earle's dad." and fellow band mates Matthew Smith (drums) and Corby Schaub (guitar and mandolin) are currently touring the United States and Europe on the back of their debut. They appeared with the Drive-by Truckers in October 2007. The first single from "Mescalito," entitled "Southside of Heaven," was released on November 30, 2007. The next single was entitled "Bread and Water." On April 11th Bingham performed on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He then appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on May 23rd, 2008.