Devlin performs at Smokey Bright’s album release show for Dashboard Heat, held at the Crocodile on Dec. 11, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Bennett)
By Andrew Barrett
This marks the fourth installment of Converge Music’s six-week series spotlighting the Seattle Music Commission’s newly appointed commissioners making waves in the Emerald City’s music scene.
Some of history’s greatest ideas were formed in the most random of places.
For Smokey Brights’ vocalist and guitarist Ryan Devlin, the best ideas were made while working in a pizza shop.
Devlin is one of the city’s new music commissioners appointed to the Seattle Music Commission, a council of trailblazers working together to actualize Seattle’s potential as a haven for musicians and community.
Devlin started playing the trombone in school music programs as early as fourth grade. After moving to Tacoma for middle school, he blossomed in Stadium High School’s jazz band while experimenting with punk and rock music.
Jazz was instrumental in introducing Devlin to performing, but a passion for rock helped him develop his own sound. Seattle-based acts like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and The Presidents of the United States soundtracked Devlin’s childhood.
Devlin acknowledged the beauty of both genres.
“Each has its own kind of freedom,” he said. “There's so much sonic, harmonic, rhythmic freedom in jazz and improvised music, which I just love, and then there's the freedom to say what it is you want to say and sound how you want to sound with DIY, punk rock, rock and roll kind of music.”
While studying at the University of Washington, he performed in a variety of punk and rock bands while helping run a house show venue.
At school, he laid down the roots for one of his current bands while working as a busing tables for a pizza restaurant. He worked at the flagship Tutta Bella location in Columbia City while playing with his punk band The Hormones in his free time.
It was during his tenure at Tutta Bella where he made some of the most important connections of his life, working with his future wife and bandmate Kim West over the summers. Through connecting with West and other musicians at the pizza shop, the foundation of Smokey Brights was built.
“I had these great musicians that became close friends right around me at the pizza place,” Devlin said. “And I was like, ‘do y'all want to start a band?’”
Devlin (far right) poses for a photo shoot with fellow members of mega cat. (Photo: Rachel Bennett)
Smokey Brights released their first album, “Taste For Blood,” in 2014. Their second project, “Hot Candy,” caught the attention of Freakout Records, which picked up the project and helped the band gain the momentum needed to tour the West Coast.
The band kept rolling at the end of the decade, as they toured across the U.S. and Europe while being showcased at festivals like Treefort and SXSW. They’ve released six albums to date, earning praise and accolades from Seattle-based music curators like 107.7 The End and KEXP.
COVID arrived when the band was about to start the first of three scheduled tours in 2020. While it restricted any ability to perform live music for Smokey Brights, it inspired Devlin to follow through with other creative passions.
Through weekly jam sessions held at friend and bandmate Aaron Benson’s home studio, Devlin and some of his fellow musician collaborators combined to put together a unique project.
“We made this whole instrumental record that started to incorporate a lot of the stuff that we really loved but wasn't really a part of the Smokey Bright’s world,” Devlin said, “Some of the jazz, and the funk, and the afrobeat, and the hip-hop.”
The record was sent to Share It Music founder Cayle Sharratt, who recommended releasing the project on his own label. With the music came a new band: mega cat.
The band started releasing singles in 2023 before putting together two longer projects in 2024. They received love for their new direction, performing a live show at KEXP while collecting consumer praise across the Pacific Northwest.
Devlin and West are currently invested in both mega cat and Smokey Brights. A second LP is on the way from mega cat sometime next year, while Devlin is close to announcing a U.S. tour for Smokey Brights.
Being in both bands shifted how Devlin sees music, he said.
“It's like getting to flip your brain over,” Devlin said. “It’s all connected, it's all music, but we get to kind of approach it from a totally different angle.”
Devlin’s impact hasn’t solely been on stage, as he has also worked to improve Seattle’s music scene. He spent several years working as a talent booker for the Columbia City Theater, a 106 year-old music and arts venue. He proceeded to book concerts and work in production for City Arts, a monthly magazine highlighting the arts and culture in the Seattle area.
He now co-runs The Tiger Room, a recording studio built into the North Seattle home he and West share. In that studio, Devlin helped produce works for the podcast Let the Kids Dance, as well as the video game Pacific Drive.
Jason Clackley, artistic director of The Vera Project and former vice chair of the Seattle Music Commission, recommended Devlin to join the commission.
Devlin’s main goal is to promote music education across the state, a platform he was not seeing enough advocacy for upon joining the council. Providing resources to local independent music schools and teachers is crucial to his tenure on the commission.
“My hope and goal would be that there are more kids in music lessons, which means more employed teachers, which means more future generations of bands and artists and people that are gonna continue to forge the identity of Seattle music,” Devlin said.
Through bimonthly meetings and monthly sub-committee sessions, the Seattle Music Commission work to elevate different facets of the city’s music scene, whether it’s helping musicians earn more for their work or connecting community to the power of music.
Learn more about the Seattle Music Commission here.
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