Ryland Blackinton

Ryland Blackinton

Blackinton performing on October 11, 2008
Born March 31, 1982
South Kingstown, Rhode Island
Nationality American
Alma mater Florida State University, Olympic Heights Community High School
Occupation Guitarist

Ryland Blackinton was the lead guitarist for the band Cobra Starship. He is from Wilmington MA, but was born in South Kingstown Rhode Island on March 31, 1982. Before joining Cobra Starship, Ryland, along with Alex Suarez formed the folk/pop duo This Is Ivy League. The two originally met at Olympic Heights Community High School, but lost touch before re-connecting in Brooklyn, New York after seven years. Incidentally, the duo were living ten minutes away from each other, and fell back into familiar habits once they discovered that. Perhaps Blackinton's most notable performance in college was when he portrayed the difficult role of Victor Emmanuel Chandebise in the French farce, A Flea in Her Ear. He starred in this production alongside Nicholas Ciavarella who played Dr. Finache. Blackinton also has a knack for being hilarious and impersonating Gabe Saporta quite well.

Blackinton can be seen in several recent TAI TV podcasts for The Academy Is... as 'Guy Ripley', a fictional reporter for BBC World News. Ripley is reputed to have an enormous crush on Victoria Asher and William Beckett. Guy Ripley is often referred to as 'The Queen of Fangirls,' and in TAI TV Episode 39, stole a lock of William Beckett's hair. Guy Ripley's catch-phrase is "Delicious." He has repeatedly asked his favorite musicians to sign his shoes.

Guy Ripley can be heard on Fall Out Boy's new mixtape on the first track. He also released his own album 'I'll Be Your Guy', which covered many songs from well-known artists such as The Academy Is... and Cobra Starship. On one of the only original tracks, "Victoria (Why Won't You Love Me Anymoria)", Ripley alludes to having an ex-wife named Gloria. Their divorce may have been due to the fact that she did not soaria like a partridge.

A song on Cobra Starship's second album, ¡Viva La Cobra!, is titled "Pleasure Ryland". "Pleasure Ryland is an imaginary place in your mind that pretty much anybody can go to, where the drinks are free, and you can always dance with most of your clothes off." said Blackinton in an interview. Saporta also said that before Blackinton was a fully paid member of Cobra Starship, he always wore a shirt that said "Pleasure Island" and decided to name a song "Pleasure Ryland" But then Saporta said that after they went over the songs on the album, they thought that it was kind of a bad idea that two of their songs had "pleasure" in them. Blackinton rebuffed him by saying that pleasure is a good thing.

Mike Carden dedicated a song to him during the Sleeping with Giants Tour in Orlando, Florida.

Blackinton plays a humorous street musician in the 2008 feature film The Unidentified, directed by Kevan Tucker of Floodgate Features. In that scene, he is seen playing guitar to the song "June" by This Is Ivy League.

Blackinton also co-stars in Misplaced Planet's short zombie video "Brains!" and contributed the bulk of the music for Misplaced Planet's production of "Momentary Engineering," along with Stirling McLaughlin.

Blackinton is the second cousin of Westlife singer Shane Filan.[1] Ryland has been with his current girlfriend, Kristen Roller for eight years.

On October 21st 2014, both Suarez and Ryland left the band to pursue their own separate careers.[2] They have since been replaced.


References

  1. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/front_page/newsid_10000000/newsid_10002100/10002177.stm
  2. ↑ http://cobrastarship.com/post/100609859130/a-farewell-from-ryland-and-alex A farewell from Ryland and Alex

External links