Overview
Dylan Tanner is an award-winning singer songwriter from Bandera, TX. He has released 3 studio albums, was coined Best Singer Songwriter by the San Antonio Current for 2015's San Antonio Music Awards, won 1st place in the 2019 Corpus Christi Spring Songwriting Competition, was awarded "Lyricist of the Year" at the 2020 Corpus Christi Songwriters Festival, and was included in the “rising star songwriter line-up” for the esteemed 2022 Dripping Springs Songwriters Festival. He has solidified his position in the Texas songwriting community over the last decade by consistently delivering his refreshingly original, heartfelt, and uplifting songs for crowds across Texas. Dylan and his wife Kristian created the annual House Concert Series "Hink House Concerts" to help bring together the only two forces that make this artform a reality: the Creator and the Listener. Dylan has teamed up with producer Mason Shirley of Sound Machine Studio’s and is set to release his latest collection of songs in 2023 centered around the title track “Illuminate”.
the dylan tanner history
Dylan Tanner Hink was born in San Antonio on October 3rd 1991. At an early age his family moved away from the big city and out to the rolling Hill Country of Lakehills, Texas. At 10, he started playing drums and spent the next 8 years behind a drum set, curiously poking his head into the songwriting sessions formed by his older brother and fellow band mates. At 18 Dylan picked up a guitar for the first time and proceeded to write 20+ original songs before learning a single cover song. At 19 Dylan moved to Austin, TX and enrolled in an audio engineering program to pursue his music career. The program was based out of the famed Arlyn Studios (Willie Nelson, Sublime, Butthole Surfers, Vance Joy, Charlie Sexton, Coldplay, Dan Dyer, Wilco, Eric Johnson, Gary Clark Jr., Lucinda Williams, Merle Haggard, Neil Young, to name a few) where Dylan self-produced most of his first album and fell in love with the art of audio recording through process of hands on recording sessions with talented artists like David Garza and Abra Moore. Upon graduating, Dylan was hired by the school and began working as a studio technician. By this time the school had relocated and Dylan worked the night shift at Ray Benson’s (Asleep at the Wheel) Bismeaux Studios. Most nights were spent alone in the studio, quietly writing new originals or recording and mixing them. Many of the sounds and recordings from “From Me to You” came from these young and weary nights in Bismeaux Studios.
In 2013 he moved to San Antonio and formed the first generation of Dylan Tanner Band upon the release of “From Me to You” in 2014. In 2015 he self-produced “Dylan Tanner EP” with Dylan Buchannan at Stinson Studios in Austin, TX which included title track “Umbrella Girl” and hometown favorite “Beards and Women” written by request for longtime childhood friend Austin Johnson. In 2014 Austin passed away in a tragic motorcycle accident and all of a sudden the goofy song written in 15 minutes took on much more weight than it was intended to carry. Dylan was voted "Best Singer Songwriter" by the San Antonio Current for their 2015 San Antonio music awards. He then formed the second generation of Dylan Tanner Band with all new members and began playing religiously around Central Texas opening for regional and national acts.
Late 2016 came soon to the news of Dylan and wife Kristian’s first child together. 2017 was a quiet year for performances but a busy year for writing. Dylan penned all songs for “Dreamer” during this time. In May of 2017 Dylan’s first son was born. He sang to him all of his newest songs as he put him to sleep each evening and watched him drift off to his dreams. With this, he decided to record and release this new collection of songs under the title “Dreamer”. Dreamer was recorded in August of 2017 by Charlie Kramsky at Austin Signal and included fan favorites such as “High”, “Beside Me”, and “John From the Street”. If you listen to this record, you will clearly hear Dylan’s proud journey into fatherhood. Dreamer was released independently in August of 2018 and led him to a featured spot on the 2019 Corpus Christi Songwriters Festival alongside Texas songwriting staples George Ensle, Susan Gibson, Al Barlow, Claud Butch Morgan, and many, many others.
Dylan entered “High” into the 2019 Corpus Christi Songwriting Competition and won 1st place which earned him a spot in the 2020 Corpus Christi Songwriting Competition. In 2022 he was selected as a "rising star" songwriter to perform at the Dripping Springs Songwriters Festival.
Dylan has teamed up with producer Mason Shirley and is currently in the production process for a new EP titled "Illuminate" to be released in the spring of 2023.