Surf Farmer: “If you give us an excuse to show up and play, we’ll do it.”

When Ryan Ruff was in high school, his two best friends were in a band that couldn’t find a bass player. Somehow, he missed the sign the universe was holding up. “I should have picked up the bass when I was 14, but it took me until 2020,” he says now. He did take a stab at playing the piano when he was very young, but it was his older, drumming brother Brendan (who plays with locals Super Buffet) who became the family musician.

Still, Ryan was always a big music fan, and he eventually got the itch to learn guitar on camping trips with a family friend, Jason McArthur, who would always bring along his acoustic. And when the Covid lockdowns started in 2020, McArthur became the catalyst for Ryan’s mid-forties stab at (finally) learning to play the bass. “He was like, ‘What are you going to do? Everything is shut down. No sports. No lessons. You’re free…I found an acoustic/electric bass for you on Craigslist. It’s about fifteen miles from your house. It’s $100. Go get it. Go learn how to play bass.’ I was like, ‘Okay, I actually love the bass.’ So I was like, ‘Why not?’”

Ryan started off by taking the free bass tutorials that were offered on Fender’s website. “It was the most rudimentary, basic things. You would complete each little video or task, and then do more and more at your own speed.” He enjoyed the tutorials so much that he decided to join his kids for their online Zoom music lessons. His son was playing drums, his daughter was playing piano and guitar, and his wife just happened to sing and play piano and guitar as well. Soon, they had a full-on family band that was doing Zoom concerts for their extended family during holidays.

But by August of 2022, Ryan felt he had reached a plateau. He told his brother that he needed to join a band. Brendan had played drums with Surf Farmer in the past, and was still friends with Tom Schwend, the band’s singer, guitarist, and songwriter. Schwend informed Brendan that he was looking for a bass player, and the wheels were set in motion.

Ryan met up with Schwend at the lawn across the street from Belmont Park for his audition. Schwend brought an acoustic guitar; Ryan had an acoustic bass. “We played the songs, and I don’t know if he could hear me or not,” Ryan recalls. “It was so loud. The roller coaster and traffic and people were walking by going, ‘What are you guys doing?’ I was thinking it was probably not going to turn out too well.” After about half an hour, Schwend turned to Ryan and informed him that they had a gig in three weeks, and that he would need to learn eighteen songs for a 90-minute set. Ryan was the new bassist for Surf Farmer.

The gig was at Winstons on October 2, 2022. “Playing that first time, I was totally like, ‘I’m acting like a weirdo. I can just feel it.’ The day before, you start feeling butterflies, but not in a good way.” He has since become more comfortable while playing live, thanks to gigs at venues such as the Ken Club, Nate’s Bar and Grill, people’s backyards, and in front of his house for Halloween trick or treaters. “If you give us an excuse to show up and play, we’ll do it,” he says.

For Ryan, who has dealt with congenital heart defects for his entire life, learning to play bass in his late forties was just another challenge. “My parents were told when I was very young that they should have more kids, because they thought I wasn’t gonna make it. My dad was like, ‘Wrong fucking answer, pal.’ They didn’t think I would make it to eighteen. Then, when I made it to eighteen, I was like, ‘Okay, now what?’ I have always been exceeding expectations there. Don’t use age as an excuse. If you want to do something, whatever the heck it is, go do it. It isn’t until we get older that it’s like, ‘I’m too old to learn to that.’ That’s nonsense. Don’t let that be the excuse. If you try it and you suck, own it. If you give it your best shot and it works, cool, good for you.”