Park City based singer/songwriter Bryon Friedman likes to play his music anywhere, but there’s something a little more rewarding playing in a quiet, and intimate setting like Riffs Acoustic Music.
“I do love playing in front of a good bar crowd,” he told The Park Record. “The energy comes at you and it’s exciting and fun and awesome, but there are times when you can’t hear yourself sing at times.
“Riffs is a listening venue where people don’t go to get drunk and do their own thing,” he said. “Also, the musician isn’t there just there to entertain. You can develop a relationship with people who are there. You can talk with them and they can ask you questions.”
Friedman will perform the next Full Moon Concert at Riffs Acoustic Music, 1205 Iron Horse Dr., on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 7 p.m.
“It’s going to be a very open and honest set,” Friedman said. “We’re going to make it an open forum and the audience can ask us how we got into music, or what kind of percussion our drummer likes.”
Friedman, himself, discovered music while a freshman at Dartmouth College in 1998.
“I went to college, not knowing much about music at all,” he said. “I showed up to school with this Fender Strat electric guitar and thought I was cool.”
That’s when Friedman’s met roommate Gordy Quist, who would go on to become the guitarist for the rock band Band of Heathens.
“He had all these cool acoustic guitars and turned me on to those and I started listening to singer/songwriters and began writing my own songs,” Friedman remembered. “That was the beginning of a while new world of music for me.”
Friedman, who was competing for the U.S. Ski Team at that time, turned to music to relax.
“It was something for me to do to stop thinking about skiing,” he said. “Since the team was touring all around Europe a lot, it was either relax to video games or guitar and I chose guitar. I would mess around, play and entertain myself.”
As his style began to emerge, people began comparing Friedman to the acoustic-rock surfers like Jack Johnson and Donovan Frankenreiter.
“They also said I sounded like Ben Harper, but over time, my sound evolved into a much broader songwriting spectrum,” he said. “As far as my influences for pure songwriting, I can’t go wrong with Jeff Tweedy and Wilco. Every time I listen to one of their songs, I find something new and realize I have a long way to go.”
Friedman’s musical spectrum includes the styles of his idols Grammy Award-winner, Tulsa-sound pioneer J.J. Cale and Delta-blues slider Kelly Joe Phelps.
“J.J’s a huge influence on me now, but I’ve also been getting into the slide guitar like Kelly Joe,” Friedman said. “I’ve got a Kona, Weissenborn-shaped slide guitar, so Kelly is a big influence in terms of his playing style.”
Friedman said he’s a totally different musician and songwriter than he was when he recorded his debut, 2007’s “Road Sodas.”
“In the past year or two, I have become a more honest writer, although I’ve never been afraid of putting my personal self into the music,” he said. “When I really started writing songs, I was involved in a gnarly accident and nearly lost my leg. I had all this time to think. Suddenly, I had this excuse to let it all out and say what I wanted to.
It was kind of a way to open the floodgates and let my feelings out.”
Now, the songwriting isn’t so much about autobiographical songwriting, as it is about taking an inspiring idea or feeling and speaking honestly about it, he said.
“It can be a personal experience or another situation, as long as it’s honest and not just saying something to make it fit or rhyme, which a lot of songwriters do,” Friedman said about his recent songs. “Even then, I’ve written stuff in songs and looked back and said, ‘What was I thinking?’ But that’s all a part of growing as a songwriter.”
Friedman is in the final stages of a new CD, “A River’s End,” his third album, which he hopes to release in October.
He’s just waiting for the final edits from producer Marc Benning.
“After that, we’ll work on the sequencing,” Friedman said. “I’m not in any rush, but we’ve been working on this for two years, now.
“The songwriting process went for a year and we pieced it together over time,” he said. “We let the energy flow and saw some songs take a new direction.”
Friedman said he plans to play a lot of songs from “A River’s End” during the Full Moon Concert, and hopes the audience likes them.
“I want them to be entertained,” he said about the audience. “I do know it will be super exciting to play for them.”
Bryon Friedman will perform at Riffs Acoustic Music. 1205 Iron Horse Dr., on Wednesday, Sept. 14. Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are $20 and available by calling (435) 647-1940. Tickets will also be available at the door for $25.