“Me & John”, formally known as Ryan Kondrat and John La Magna, have stored genres of music varying from dance to hip hop, folk, pop and rap for the past seven years, with Fortune 500 companies climbing their walls for their in demand catchy tunes for multimillion dollar campaigns. Backtrack over a decade, Ryan’s laid back yet unwavering personality brought forth an altering career direction when he ventured into the business side of music down south in Melbourne, Australia, working for Central Station Records (A dance music label). A drastic shift from the urban and snowy heaps of Calgary, Alberta, where he spent the majority of his early years being shaped into a classic male rural teen. However, a discovery of the ability to create music on his laptop led him to enroll in Production Engineering at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Toronto, ON. Back to the snowy drifts of Pickering, Canada, resided the exceptionally gifted John La Magna, who was quietly writing and producing music since the tender age of 13. With instinctive skills playing musical instruments: guitar, classical guitar, bass and drums, John’s next step was to further his career by obtaining an official paperwork, earning the diploma for Production Engineering.
The two effortlessly met at school in 2002, and have since been tagged the name “Me&John”. Spear heading their career into the dance music scene as ghost writers for Jelo, Donald Glaude and DJ Dan, they quickly merged into the television and advertising side of the industry for Syndicate Sound. The hub of Syndicate Sound, allowed Me&John to continue to write for themselves and various other artists in a fully equipped professional studio while producing scores for series including but not limited to: Project Runway Canada Season 1&2 (Global/Slice), Make the Politician Work (CBC), Keys to the VIP Season 1 – 3 (CTV/Comedy), Star Rate (Discovery), Nerve (CBC), Smart Ask (CBC) and Space For Living (Syndicated). Ad campaigns flocked to their hands on the regular when major companies like Heineken, Coors Light, Cogeco, Baltimore Zoo, Moors, Mill Street, Beer.com, Cincinnati Bell, Cisco and Chuckchanski Casino’s requested their talents for music production. Since changing locations to Pirate Music – the duo now head up the television division and have recently landed the popular television show “Property Brothers”, the Tropicana ad featuring Ingrid Michaelson, which premiered at the Grammy’s this past February 2013. Also on their long list is “Are We There Yet” and 2013’s most controversial feature film “The Canyons” starring Lindsay Lohan, and directed by Paul Schrader, which they composed alongside Brendan Canning.
Through the grey scene of music production, the two developed a great relationship with Broken Social Scene, which landed them the gig of Co-writing and producing Brendan Canning’s latest CD “Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning”. Since then, they earned a JUNO for production on SHAD’s “TSOL” for Rap Recording of the Year record on Black Box/Decon Records and created a shelf life of artists such as: Famous, Torquil Campbell from the Stars, Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Lisa Lobsinger, Rob James, ISH, Lily Frost and Lights to their name, producing and writing for all. Remixes of current chart toppers have come knocking on their door as they continue to produce effortlessly cutting edge music remixes for Nelly Furtado, Divine Brown, Tamia, Gentelmen Reg., and Lushlife.