Life & Work with Jacob Ryan Smith

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacob Ryan Smith.

Hi Jacob Ryan, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was born and raised in Atlanta, living in the same house up until I graduated high school. Growing up, that house and its peculiar looks and sounds quickly exposed me to the wonders of being surrounded by art. Each section of the house has a specific color scheme– deep red in the kitchen, spring yellow in the upstairs, and my favorite leopard print near my parent’s room. My mother, a staunch advocate for “kitsch,” decorated the house top to bottom in all sorts of fascinating objects, from an excess of roosters (some statues, some mannequins, some merely painted on kitchenware) to beautifully ornate fake pears that would sit on the island in our living room while we watched TV. My father, a soft lover of music, would play music on our grand piano after work most evenings and the sound would drift through the walls of the house. Though my parents did not work in the arts directly, a love of the creative was instilled in my sister and me from the moment we were born. We were doomed to be weirdo artists.

I started playing on our family’s piano when I was two– on second though, “banging” might be a better word than “playing.” It wasn’t fun to listen to, I assure you, but man did I love it. I’d slap the keys as hard as I could while belting out stupid original songs that, to my family and friend’s credit, were mostly supported. When I was around 12, my sister and I began writing musicals and pop songs based on our favorite TV shows and video games. I’d record them in my our basement using equipment I’d built up over years of birthday gifts, and the house would have an ever-growing crew of neighbors, school friends, and sometimes internet-strangers that I’d call over to record vocals. We started releasing some of the music on Tumblr and began to make waves in multiple fan communities, my first taste at sharing my original music with people who seemed to enjoy it. By the time I was getting ready to graduate from high school, I had three full-length book musicals under my belt and over 100 pop songs.

I went to college at The University of Michigan, getting my BFA in Musical Theater Performance, a love I’d discovered through singing my own songs for years. The University of Michigan (UMich as we call it) has an incredible alumni base of actors, singers, and writers in all sorts of different mediums, so I knew it was the right place to foster both my performance capabilities as well as my songwriting ones. Through sheer luck, while I was enrolled there, the school added a new minor in Musical Theater Composition, with which I was the first graduate. I made the most of my time in college, writing two full-length musicals that were workshopped by the program, performing in multiple professional productions across the country, producing a short film and dozens of pop songs, hosting an evening of my original music in New York City at Feinstein’s/54 Below, and writing and organizing a Michigan-based educational tour-show in partnership with UMich and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services with the goal of educating young people on the dangers of opioid abuse. I also partied a lot (sorry mom). It was a busy few years.

I graduated from The University of Michigan with The Albert Stanley Medal (the highest honor a single student can receive in the arts school) and was excited about what the future could bring… except, no I wasn’t because there was this crazy pandemic just beginning. Luckily, earlier that year on January 1st, I embarked on a journey to try and write a song everyday for the entire year. The project, entitled “The Song Smith”, quickly grew in size after the shut down in March of 2020. Once every artist I knew had lost their job and were condemned to their childhood bedrooms, I started calling individuals up to virtually collaborate with me on the songs of the day. In the end, the project was a success resulting in 366 original songs (leap year!) and over 50 collaborations (you can see the anthology of songs @the_song_smith on Instagram).

That project got me a job composing for Atlanta’s own “Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre,” where I wrote, orchestrated and produced the music and script for their holiday show “Marley Was Dead, To Begin With” an avant-garde retelling of A Christmas Carol. In early 2021, I was contracted by The University of Southern California to write a digital musical for their students I ended up calling “Unprecedented.” I started getting jobs writing music for commercials, TV shows, radio, and non-profits. While managing to work as a full-time composer, I signed with a New York agency as an actor and performer, auditioning for professional theater and film across the country. I’m currently writing this while in Detroit, MI, starring in the North American Premiere of The Ladies in Lavender.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I’m extremely lucky to have always had a very supportive family and network of friends. Having the right support will almost always get you through the tough times. Middle and high school were definitely hard at times, being in an academic community that didn’t fully value the arts. A lot of my artistic education throughout that time had to be done on my own, getting jobs at local community theaters like The Atlanta Workshop Players and Act 3 Productions and befriending other well-versed artists who could show me how to navigate a career path like this.

Graduating into the pandemic was probably the biggest challenge. As with everyone, the momentum of years of hard work had stopped in its tracks, and performance arts as a whole were shut down completely. I became a full-time composer for nearly two years, distancing myself from the performance path I had been predominately pursuing in college. Staying on steady footing and keeping a clear head were the biggest priorities during that time, and I wrote as much as I possibly could to keep myself busy.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I pride myself in my ability to jump from genre to genre to craft the exact sound needed for the moment. That’s why my musical interests heavily sway towards the theatrical– it lets me create a world of music that captures the drama and action of the scene. Throughout The Song Smith (my song-a-day project) I got to play with tons of different genres, challenging myself to research and write in a plethora of styles. I’ve recently been working for a radio station out of Seattle composing all of their transition music, and have composed in all sorts of genres, like a Frank Sinatra big band number, or a “Barney the Dinosaur” style children’s song or a “Devil Went Down To Georgia” folk song (I could keep going). I never really run out of melodies, so if you need a song, I feel confident I could find the exact sound for which you’re looking.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
I mentioned a bit about my time as a composer in Covid, but mostly I learned to keep busy. Find things you’re passionate about and pursue them honestly and fiercely, and eventually they will lead to more and more projects. The power of the internet is intense, and using it to surround yourself with a community of like-minded individuals can be an amazing tool for holding yourself accountable for your work.

Contact Info:

• Email: JacobRyanSmithMusic@Gmail.com
• Website: JacobRSmith.com
• Instagram: @jakesmithsings or @the_song_smith