Jazz/Reggae/Neo-soul artist Colin Devane has been mingling with music since before he was born. His parents met while dancing to Balkan folk music and carried their musical interests throughout his childhood, with his mom regularly rousing the family from sleep with loud jazz on the weekends for cleaning “parties,” and his dad, an amateur folk musician and bluegrass lover, insistently trucking the family to music festivals. It was at one of these festivals that he found his calling, telling his parents he wanted to become a trumpet player. Inspired by Louis Armstrong, he began to learn traditional jazz.
After a turbulent adolescence, which took him away from his musical calling, for most of his early twenties Colin stayed out of the music scene in pursuit of academics, studying comparative mythology, philosophy and literature, traveling abroad, and learning languages. At 27, entranced by the jam scene in Long Beach, California, and encouraged by local artists, the singer, songwriter, and producer came back to his musical origins, playing for the group “Via Leaves” (alongside Kelsey Gonzalez, Nonchalant Savant, Jasmine Canales and Joose on Drums) as a keyboardist/singer, as well as being the house keyboardist for Fight Club LBC and its famous jam sessions from its inception in 2014 until 2018. He also produced the album Ashé for Long Beach artist rael_one as well as tracks for Tall Paul during this period, and has DJ'd Caribbean, African, Latin, future beats and jazz music since 2015.
He was the house DJ at Long Beach's reggae mainstay, Reggae in the LBC, during 2017-18, subsequently serving as musical director for the house band (and briefly host of their online radio show) from 2018-2020. He also often performed as a duo called "Hipsway" alongside Via Leaves' drummer, Joose, worked in studio with master producers Shafiq Husayn and Aden Joshua, and freelanced with multiple reggae groups in the greater LA area from 2017-2022. In 2020 he founded "GYO (Grow Your Own) Productions," which focuses on producing educational gardening, ecology and permaculture videos and courses, curating plant adoptions and reggae shows, as well as producing reggae, jazz, and R&B records. Colin worked regularly with roots reggae singer Freddy Rutz and No Surrender Sound from 2019-2022, and produced Freddy's debut single "Red Hot Stepper." Since early 2022, he resides in Hawaii as a full time musician, gigging, throwing music events and plant potlucks, working on the side in permaculture practice and education, as well as participating in musical community and projects, including with organizers like Cab Spates of Optimysstique, artists such as Laupepa, Stephen Harris, Styles, and FIA, and the musical collectives Kalolu the Band on Maui and Deep Aloha on O’ahu.
