"Heartfelt delivery with fiery fun" - Wilmington Star News
Bryan Toney takes folk rock to the edge as a North Carolina alternative folk/rock/country singer songwriter whose voice echoes soft and sweet with strong, hard-driving guitar toe-tapping riffs and intensely personal and sometimes whimsical original lyrics, loaded with vibrant imagery. Since the release of his debut solo album With a Y in 2017, he has performed solo and with his duo Bryan Toney Overdrive (featuring Tim Fogarty on guitar) in more than 60 cities all across the country including Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, Asheville, Roanoke, Nashville, Louisville, Charleston, Wilmington, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, New Orleans and Washington, DC. His sophomore album Cone of Uncertainty produced by Tom Troyer (Farewell Friend) at Black Rabbit Audio was released on March 8, 2019.
Growing up in North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, Bryan began writing songs as a teenager. He played guitar and keyboards in his first band while attending high school in Nashville. While later pursuing careers as a technology entrepreneur and university educator, he continued writing original material and played guitar, bass and keys in a number of mostly garage bands, first in Atlanta then in Boone, NC. He later collaborated as Otis Peach with high school band mates, Lewis Lowrey and former Lambchop drummer Allen Lowrey on the album, Ladybug Breath.
After an unplanned and extended musical hiatus, Bryan started cranking out dozens of new original tunes and began performing as a solo artist in 2015. Recently, he started incorporating his first instrument, the piano, into his shows and plays frequently with Tim Fogarty as Bryan Toney Overdrive.
His music has been compared to Nick Lowe, Belle and Sebastian, the Mountain Goats, Dawes, Wilco, Nick Lowe, Bread, Elvis Costello, America, the Zombies, R.E.M. and Harry Nilsson among many others and resonates with everyone from millennials to baby boomers.
After listening to some of Bryan's newer songs, an old friend in Atlanta said his music sounds like "Gerry Rafferty meets Donovan on the Ventura Highway". Bryan’s songs include slow and fast ones, happy and sad ones, so try a few before you decide who you think he sounds like. Sounding like Bryan Toney is enough to his fans.