Over the years, Bryan’s powers of persuasion (to say nothing of precision) have led to successful BASE jumps off skyscrapers in Singapore, Brazil and Reno, as well as “swooping” descents into NFL stadiums. The Truckee, Calif., resident is a regular performer with Red Bull teammates in demonstrations and exhibitions, and a firm believer in the new-school method of “swooping.” “Our style is the smallest, fastest parachutes, and that’s what sets up apart,” he says. “People always think we’re gonna die, then we float in right on the 50 yard line.”
And all this from a guy whose first career involved playing bass for PAW, a band from the mid-1990s that toured with Tool, had a contract with A&M Records, and was once dubbed “the next Nirvana” by Newsweek.
In 1995, Bryan gave up the promise of a globe-trotting career in music to camp in the Arizona desert and learn the skills that would make him a freeflying world champion. “After living the sleep-all-day, stay-up-all-night lifestyle, it was so refreshing to get outdoors,” the Mississippi native remembers. “I was staying in Wisconsin, laying down tracks for an album. When I got bored, I’d go skydiving.” After touring Europe with PAW, Bryan quit the band, pitched a tent in Arizona, and launched a new career.
Bryan came into skydiving at an exciting time as athletes were beginning to experiment with freeflying — descending head or feet first in 3-D, and eschewing the traditional “belly” down method. ESPN was looking for new sports to broadcast at the time, and freeflying fit the bill. It worked out well for Bryan — he won six gold medals in X Games events in 1996-97, captured the 1996 SSI Pro Tour World Championship, and earned the “world’s fastest man” title in 1998. (The record has since been eclipsed.)
All the while, Bryan worked feverishly to promote the sport. He organized the ground-breaking Freefly Festival from 1996 to 1999, he founded and ran for a time Sky Dive Lake Tahoe, and he co-produced several videos celebrating the essence of freeflying.
About ten years ago, the freeflying movement began to embrace “swooping”-style canopies — smaller, faster chutes than traditional models — with an eye toward spicing up landings with an aerobatic element. “Smaller chutes let you generate lots of speed before you land. But like a fighter jet, it just doesn’t do slow — it lands fast,” Bryan says. Carrying the velocity of, say, a 4,000 foot jump, skydivers use the specially designed canopies — and years of cumulative skill and experience — to “swoop” to the ground in an exponential curve that starts steep and planes out at speeds approaching 70 mph.
Bryan and his wife, Annica, have two children, Emma and Rocket, and Bryan stays busy with several other projects. He recently taught skateboard legend Bob Burnquist how to BASE jump for a “Stunt Junkies” episode melding skating and BASE-ing at the Grand Canyon, and he works doing demos with the Flyboyz, a team founded by friend Eli Thompson, who is also the host of “Stunt Junkies” and a member of the Red Bull Air Force (skydiving division).
Bryan and Thompson are now hatching new schemes for the future, including one aimed at returning the title of world’s fastest man to Bryan. “Yeah, I definitely think about trying to get it back,” Bryan admits. “I mean, you’re way up there and you still sound like a missile from the ground.”
And for a musician-turned-skydiver like Bryan, that must be music to his ears.
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