Keep Up
Ryan Kinder has stunned the Nashville music scene with his harrowing voice and powerful guitar playing but he doesn’t stop there. As an avid triathlete, Ryan was selected to compete in the Ironman World Championship and attempts to balance his physical training with recording his second full length country rock album.
Ryan Kinder is no stranger to heartbreak.
As a professional musician in Nashville, he has faced a lot of rejection. The first major record label he struck a deal with went bankrupt. After performing in bars and colleges around the country, he finally got his big break and signed a contract with Warner Music as a country rockstar. He put out a few singles, each with a few million streams on Spotify, but when Warner discovered they couldn’t put him in a box and market him as “Bro Country”, because of his unique style and voice that appealed to a wide range of listeners, they fired him.
It was at this time that Ryan began his endurance training. “He needed something to focus on, something he could control.” Says his producer and long time friend Luke Sheets, “He didn’t bounce back right away, but he thought, ‘I’m going to show them what they missed.’”
After completing a 444 mile bike race in Tennessee in honor of his friends passing, Ryan extended his athletic goals to the Ironman races. “Ironman is a daunting task.” Says Mike Reilly, who has been the announcer and voice of Ironman for decades “It’s a 2.4 mile swim. 112 mile bike ride. And a 26.2 mile run.” It is one of the most difficult triathlon races that exists on earth. Many athletes require well over 20 hours a week of training to complete it. For Ryan and his already busy schedule as a professional musician in Nashville, it required an extreme level of discipline.
After years of completing Ironman races, Ryan was finally selected to compete in the Ironman World Championship in the fall of 2022. I began filming the documentary one year earlier and followed Ryan to music studios in Montreal, Nashville, Ironman races in Chattanooga, and eventually to Hawaii. However, during the year in which Ryan was training for the World Championship, he faced some exceptionally grueling obstacles. A month and a half before his half Ironman in Chattanooga, a midway point to Kona (where the world championship was to be held) Ryan broke his collarbone and a skiing accident while performing in Montana.
“I’m pretty sure those were the highest notes he’s ever hit.” Ryan’s wife, Heather Kinder shares with me as we chat during her interview on a floral couch in their AirBnB in Hawaii, “He was in so much pain.”
Behind the scenes moments from the production of Keep Up:
After extensive physical therapy, Ryan made enough of a recovery to compete in Chattanooga. He didn’t do as well as he hoped but still had a few months before the World Championship. However, just a few weeks after the Chattanooga Half-Ironman, Ryan was on a training ride in Nashville and got hit by a car. Once again hospitalized, his training was thrown off course. But although he couldn’t swim, bike or run, he could still sing. So, he continues to refine the vocals for his upcoming album, titled Heirloom, coming summer 2023.
Despite being under trained due to his freak injuries, Ryan still decided to compete in the World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. After months of waking up at 4am to do physical therapy, long bike rides, cold morning laps in the pool and training runs on tired legs… it was time to put it all on the line. “It was so amazing to see him cross that finish line.” recalls Heather Kinder “It’s not just about Ryan. It’s about everyone that loves Ryan, was cheering for Ryan, and was fighting for Ryan… when he crossed that finish line, he crossed that for everyone.”
Now, in the year following Ryan Kinder‘s challenging year of battling injuries, he’s back to full health and set to compete in a few more Ironman races this year. His album, Heirloom, is highly anticipated and is already bringing fans and record labels to Ryan’s shows to hear more of his soulful country rock style. In my final interview with Luke Sheets, Ryan’s producer, he tells me “I’ve been asking myself for years… how does the whole world not know Ryan Kinder’s name?”
Well, hopefully that’s about to change.
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Roo is a commercial/documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado but travels all around the world for his filmmaking career. He has directed documentaries for Patagonia in California, produced films for Outside Magazine throughout Europe and Africa, camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West, and photographed among indigenous communities in South America, and has received notable recognition in his hometown of Orcas Island in Washington State for his work telling uplifting stories in the outdoor space.
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