Episode 222 with Hootie & The Blowfish guitarist Mark Bryan

Hootie & The Blowfish co-founding guitarist Mark Bryan has a new solo project called Popped. Showcasing his multi-faceted talents, Bryan played all instruments while also enlisting a band of Charleston musicians, including skilled horn players, to round out the project with additional depth and dimension.

"I made the record before the tour, in the fall of '23, I guess it was," Bryan tells us. "It just where I was at musically. I just had a bunch of songs and I have a home studio, and got with my engineer and cranked them out. Most of the noises you hear on the album are me, including drums. I played a lot of drums this time for the first time, which is cool. I had a band in on other tracks, and some horns. I kinda really stretched the direction that I'm going on this one. I went many directions. I kinda let the songs dictate the style, and just followed that. I have a Latin pop song on there, and ska song, and a reggae song, and some stuff that's a bit more folky and a big rock song. It's just all over the place."

Bryan is on tour supporting the project. The multi-instrumentalist, who's from Silver Spring, Maryland, will play a hometown show at The Atlantis in Washington, DC on June 20th featuring Hootie's Gary Greene, and other area musicians.

This episode also sees Bryan discuss his and Darius Rucker's solo projects, and what he hopes the future holds for his longtime band.