Behind the Music Scene – May 2026
ODDS ARE GOOD that you saw Bryan Oliver play music in 2025. After all, if you add up solo performances, gigs with his “Bryan Oliver Trio” and the weekly open mic he hosts, Oliver played 127 times last year—none of which would’ve been possible, he says, if not for a decision he made in 2023. “I was living in a flooded basement,” he recalls, “and then I decided to get sober.”
Two years later, Oliver has built a reputation as one of the most professional musicians in the Rogue Valley—something he attributes mostly to that life-changing decision. “Within a week, I was able to do things on the guitar I didn’t even know I knew how to do.”
An assist soon followed, from local music legend Nick Garrett-Powell. “I was living in party houses,” Oliver says, “trying not to drink, when Nick invited me to live with him. I spent 2024 with him inviting me onstage at gigs, putting me in front of people. I built relationships based on his recommendations.”
“Eventually,” he says, “Nick told me I should start doing things under my own name.”
Not that Oliver was unknown; far from it. He’d been playing locally in bands for years and he’s hosted the open mic at Boomtown in Jacksonville for eight years. In addition, his father, Martin Oliver, is one of the best-known sound men in the area. What had held him back, though, was what he describes as a combination of procrastination, unseriousness and the anonymity of being a sideman.
All of which, for the most part, is over now. Oliver still plays as a “bassist for hire,” at times, but his youthful goal of “learning to shred” on guitar has been realized with the Bryan Oliver Trio, where his blues-based, psychedelic guitar work punctuates his originals and makes cover songs uniquely his. “The band is my passion project,” he explains. “The solo shows are my job”
Last year, Oliver went on tour as part of Adam Gabriel’s Cavaliers, testing both his ambition and his sobriety. The sobriety part, he says, was relatively easy. “I almost feel lucky,” he muses. “I’m almost certain if I was out there at 23 (years old) I would’ve blown it.”
As for the ambition, Oliver says he’s “been accused of not being good at having fun with this.” He thrives on nonmusical musician work—merchandising, social media, and booking shows, but even as he talks about someday buying a house with income made solely from music, the passionate artist is seldom far from the surface. “The goal,” he says, “is just listening, acting and letting the music play you.”