Ryland Blackinton

Infobox_Person
name = Ryland Blackinton

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imagesize = 150px
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birth_date =
birth_place = South Kingstown, Rhode Island
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education =
alma_mater = Florida State University
occupation = Guitarist
residence =
spouse =
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nationality = American

Ryland Blackinton is the lead guitarist for the band Cobra Starship. He is from Wilmington MA, but was born in South Kingstown Rhode Island on March 31st. Before joining Cobra Starship, Ryland, along with high school best friend Alex Suarez formed the folky/pop duo This Is Ivy League. The two originally met in 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. [http://media.www.fsunews.com/media/storage/paper920/news/2004/01/07/ArtsAndEntertainment/Back-To.The.Stage-2360730.shtml] 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.

Ryland 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. 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.

A song on Cobra Starship's new 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." says Ryland in an interview.Fact|date=January 2008 Saporta also said that before Ryland 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.

He has a small fan club entitled, "Team Pleasure Ryland" who has been spotted at shows wearing yellow shirts with black lettering sporting their fan club name.

Ryland 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.

Personal life

Ryland lives with the other members of the band Cobra Starship and his family lives in Boca Raton, Florida.

External links

* [http://www.armedready.com/?p=64 Ryland Blackinton's Interview with Armed&Ready]
* [http://www.pop-zap.com/conversations/20070613/?/ Interview with PopZap]
* [http://www.thisisivyleague.net/ The This Is Ivy League Official Site]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgRCgAyZBFw/ TAI TV Episode 17]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGmqNa12gy8/ TAI TV Episode 19]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcbhMAnnlkU/ TAI TV Episode 26]
* [http://www.misplacedplanet.com/brains/brains_qt_hi.html Brains!]
* [http://www.misplacedplanet.com/momeng Momentary Engineering]