Dominant Legs

Let yourself love what you love: the idea is simple and yet the act is deceivingly hard. Nevertheless, when you are in the presence of Ryan William Lynch, songwriter, guitarist and lead vocalist for San Francisco’s Dominant Legs, you know without question that he has done just that. And he’s asking you to join him. To judge by Dominant Legs’ sound—pop songs culled from the textures of past decades, but with a classic songwriting approach—this man has many loves. Shot through with addictive synth melodies and vocal harmonies, crossed with a chic shimmer of Nile Rogers style guitar, and flecked with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac and, yes, Tracy Chapman, Dominant Legs songs are as difficult to describe as they are to resist.

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The story begins in 2008, when, after being laid off from his job as a mail clerk, Lynch, began to compose the first Dominant Legs songs in his suddenly abundant free time. He recalls, “one day I finished a new song. It was different from any song I had written before. I knew I had something.” With his newfound sound as Dominant Legs, Lynch, who had played for years in SF band Magic Bullets and was currently lending his playing to GIRLS, began catching ears and eyes while performing around San Francisco and eventually across the country.

In 2009 vocalist/keyboardist Hannah Hunt joined. With interweaving male and female vocals, the duo breathed life into songs about the perils and excitements that endlessly rise from the commingling of boy and girl. In 2010 Dominant Legs released the Young at Love and Life EP to critical praise. After a year of performing internationally, the songs had grown and so did the band: bassist Andrew Connors, guitarist Garett Goddard and drummer Rene Solomon joined to expand Dominant Legs’ sound as the group geared up to record its first full-length LP.

With a handful of songs already written, Lynch encountered a quote by the Boss himself speaking of his masterpiece, Thunder Road: “It's an invitation. It was my big invitation. We invite you to something. Not sure what yet. Something is opening up. A sense of larger life, greater experience. . . . Sense of more fun. Sense of personal exploration, the idea that it was all laying there somewhere inside of you.” He chose to run with these themes, and, in late May Dominant Legs' first full-length was completed. Rife with a spirit of abandon and love and life experienced in its fullness, Invitation awaits you on Lefse Records this fall.