Conversations with Ryan Kemmer

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Kemmer. 

Hi Ryan, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
When I was 18, I moved to Phoenix from my hometown of Tucson so I could go to ASU (go devils). I instantly fell in love with the valley because it is such an exciting and growing place. 

Coming into college I was really involved in music. I started from a classical background at a young age and spent most of my teenage years playing in local Tucson bands and producing my own electronic music. For my first couple of years at ASU, I was really involved in the music school, where I met many talented musicians including many of my current bandmates. Eventually, I ended up dropping out of music school to pursue a career in computer science. However, a group of good music school friends ended up morphing into my band, Natural Flavors. 

Natural Flavors was initially a fun, jam band that started out in the basement of the ASU music building. We would jam and write songs Wednesday nights, and record songs whenever nobody was using the basement. We went for a chill indie sound that emulated the vibes of the Sonoran Desert. We kept playing and writing songs together for years and eventually, it turned into a real project worth investing in. 

We just released our debut album, “In Bloom” the summer of 2021. We have started playing live again, and are very excited for what’s to come in 2022! 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It took us nearly 3 years to finish recording our first album. Originally, we just started making recordings aimlessly without any real direction at all. Finally, in the Spring of 2020, we decided we needed to consolidate everything together and really put our best foot forward. Still after that, it took as a full year to finalize our record. 

It is hard to coordinate a band like ours. We have a total of 5 musicians, and every one of us are critical to achieving the sound we want. Getting 5 very busy people together can at times be very challenging! 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I wear a lot of different musical hats. I specialize in songwriting, vocals, production, drums, keyboards, just to name a few. My main thing has usually been drums. I’ve played drums with a lot of different bands on a lot of different stages around AZ. Nowadays, I focus a lot more on vocals and songwriting, although drums always have a special place in my heart. If you listen to our music, you can tell that percussion is very important to us as a band 😉 

A lot of talented musicians do the singer/songwriter thing, which is great. However, I’ve just never been that into it. I’d rather do music in a more unique way, featuring multiple vocalists, multiple songwriters, and really focus in on the sound and how everything comes together. This is exactly what we embody in Natural Flavors. 

We love surprises, fun facts, and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Apart from music, I am really involved in the tech industry. I love the potential for the future of technology, and spend a lot of time coding and working on open-source projects. Machine learning has been a huge focus of mine over the last couple of years. 

My day job is being a software engineer, and I love the whole tech field 🙂 

Contact Info:

• Email: ryankemmer77@gmail.com
• Website: https://naturalflavors.us/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturalflavorsband
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/naturalflavorsaz
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/naturalflav0rs
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoyk4bzha8ZQy-Sqt4R8lRQ

Image Credits
Gilbert Guerrero