ricky wise

Baltimore based musician playing full time with several of the areas best bands and musicians

Ricky Wise is a Baltimore based singing drummer. Growing up on the music of the '40s and '50s from his Grandparents, classic rock from the '60s through the '80s from his Dad, and soul, Motown, and disco hits from the '60s through today from his Mom, he had a wide range of musical knowledge to pull from when he became a full time musician. Ricky has been performing in the DMV area for over a decade now, and has no plans on stopping any time soon. Ricky still enjoys digging through the archives and listening to tunes of the past, as well as finding new music that turns him on, and finding some time to work on original music of his own in his spare time, whatever that is.

Along with all of the 1.2 million bands Ricky is in, he also occasionally gets the call to do even more! Friends like Sweet Leda, or Lower Case Blues, or Bill Kirchen might even call Ricky for a gig, which is exciting and always keeps the music fresh. Or, he spends time recording drums for other people’s projects in the studio, such as Parthenon Huxley, or Laura Brino, or Wicked Sycamore! He has always found it such a joy to collaborate with other musicians, especially when there’s no time to prep; just show up and boogie!

The summer of 2021 began a partnership between Ricky and Nate McCoy, which resulted in The Woodshed at Nate’s Place, a concert series in Baltimore, MD focusing on original artists happening once a month, all year long in Canton! Ricky & Nate have big plans for the future, but that’s all you get to know for now.

2022 brought along a few new projects to keep the world turning. The Rub was a band born out of boredom and collective availability, and fortunately turned out some fun tunes. Having recorded the songs in January of 2021 in a geodesic dome in West Virginia, they really weren’t sure what would come out. But Ricky, Buddy Speir (g), Sonny Petrosky (b) and Graham Spice (g/k) pulled together a mixed bag of tunes that pulled from all of their different musical backgrounds. 

The Ricky Wise Trio - (Ricky (d,v), Jeff Reed (b,v), Jamie O’Connell (g,v) - is currently a cover project playing and creating music every Monday night at The Admiral’s Cup in Fells Point. The focus is to make every song sound uniquely theirs, while still being something the audience would recognize or, at the very least, enjoy. The band is currently writing original material to hopefully be recorded in 2024.