Brett Ratner

Born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Brett Ratner is a musician with a rich pedigree. Interested in music from a young age, Ratner grew up listening to Classic Rock and American Top 40. From 5th grade through high school he played saxophone in his schools' concert bands, marching bands, jazz ensembles, and pit orchestras but was inspired to pick up the guitar after hearing classmates perform "Hotel California" at a school assembly. Largely self-taught on guitar, he figured out how to play his favorite songs by ear, jamming to tunes by Pink Floyd, The Sex Pistols, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Boston, and The Cars. Joe Satriani’s album Surfing with the Alien was a particularly strong influence when he first learned the instrument.

Brett attended the University of Iowa, where he earned a journalism degree and became an award-winning music critic and features writer for The Daily Iowan. On the recommendation of a music professor, he regularly attended blues jams and open mic nights, some of which he would go on to occasionally host. He also joined a busy local cover band, performing at bars, fraternity parties, and summer festivals.

Ratner moved to Nashville directly after college and quickly became a rock music critic and music journalist for Guitar Player, The Tennessean, The Nashville Scene, Music Row Magazine, Harmony Central, Musician, and Electronic Musician, in addition to dozens of other highly-regarded publications. He also worked at Gibson Musical Instruments in their Marketing and Artist Relations departments, where he regularly interacted with Gibson artists including Slash, Angus Young, B.B. King, Peter Frampton, Zakk Wylde, Kix Brooks, Nikki Sixx, Chet Atkins, and many more. He unofficially led the house band (made up of Gibson employees, including the CEO) at the Gibson Café, which hosted jam sessions that often included famous players. In addition, he played in several locally known original groups that regularly performed at popular Nashville venues such as Exit/Inn, Bluebird Café, Douglas Corner, Ace of Clubs, Hard Rock Café, 12th and Porter, and the "Dancin' in the District" summer concert series. For a short time, one band also held a residency at a venue on Broadway in Nashville’s famous tourist district.

Around 1995, Ratner recorded an original instrumental track called “Blues in Space” that featured echoed, ambient guitars mixed with two-handed finger tapping and “shreddy” guitar licks. "Blues in Space" was inspired by the lush, ambient music he found an affinity for as a music journalist. The song is still available on iTunes and has been licensed for use in visual media on multiple occasions. Coincidentally, around this time, Ratner was seeking mentorship and advice on how to integrate into Nashville’s session scene. Noted session player and producer Kenny Greenberg, upon hearing Blues in Space, instead encouraged Brett to focus on writing and performing original instrumental music (advice Ratner would, unfortunately, ignore at the time).

Brett moved back to Illinois in 1999 and quickly fell into a busy blues band that hosted weekly jams and played regularly in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. In the early 2000s, he also started playing solo sets at bookstores, restaurants, private events, and several area pubs. This is significant because it is when Ratner started using a looper pedal and began developing his unique voice on the guitar.

In 2005, Brett met Rick Barnes, the owner of Chicago's esteemed Rax Trax Recording studio. Barnes suggested that Ratner seek out a talented singer-songwriter to build a project around. This resulted in a working relationship with Brazillian-American artist Monica da Silva, and Brett co-wrote her 2007 album Miles From Nowhere, which Rick produced at Rax Trax. The project garnered interest from major record labels but ultimately wound up being a springboard into the world of production music for Ratner, who was soon writing for Universal Music Publishing, Oprah’s music publishing division, as well as several privately owned music publishers. As a result, Brett's original music has been used in more than 700 TV episodes (spanning almost 200 shows), four movies (Holidate, Lady Bird, Polanski Unauthorized, and What We Find on the Road), and a handful of ads for brands like Patron Tequila and Wal-Mart. His TV credits include The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Chicago PD, Shameless, American Idol, NFL on Fox, MLB on Fox, Tosh.0, and The Office.

After brief stints playing in cover bands and live karaoke bands between 2005 and 2011, Ratner largely went on a musical hiatus for several years as he was primarily interested in riding bicycles. He lived in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and then Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he spent most of his free time trying for "Strava KOMs” on the area’s many trails and switchback mountain roads. He also did a weeklong road bike tour through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and tested his mountain bike skills on legendary trails in Sedona, Moab, the Pisgah National Forest, and Bootleg Canyon (outside of Las Vegas).

He moved back to the Chicago area in 2018. One week after the move, he received a random call from a bandleader that he used to play gigs with. The band leader was in need of a guitarist and, suddenly, Brett went from zero to playing 70+ shows a year. Soon after, he was also regularly playing solo at breweries, bars, restaurants, on cruise ships, and at private events, honing his chops as a guitarist using looper effects.

After playing hundreds of gigs, Ratner started to feel inspired to finally take Nashville session ace Kenny Greenberg’s advice and start recording and performing original instrumental music…which brings us to now.

Today, Brett’s back to writing production music while also releasing original instrumental tracks on iTunes and Spotify. You can also catch him at any number of local venues in the Chicago area, playing solo, with a handful of duos and trios, and occasionally fronting “The Brett Ratner Band.”