by Courtney H. Naliboff

The Somerville News Friday Night @ Toast July 29 featured the solo stylings of the former lead singer of the band Cancer to the Stars.

Ryan Lee, who is working on new solo material, said he wants his new endeavor to sound weighted, as though the listener were underwater.

Lee’s nearly operatic voice filled the candlelit lounge, captivating the crowd of listeners, as if they had been invited into his cave.

With his feet curled around the rungs of his tall wooden stool, Lee accompanied himself on electric guitar, switching to bass for one song.

Lee began playing guitar ten years ago, inspired by 1970s punk when he first heard The Ramones, he said.

“I got a guitar and was in a band a week later,” he said. “We could barely play.”

Lee said the music he was listening to was particularly pertinent because it seemed to come out of the artists’ need to play, rather than technical aptitude.

Lee said he tried singing but was initially discouraged.

“My parents told me to stop,” he said.

Lee joined Cancer to the Stars while he was studying at Northeastern University, he said.

“We were looking for a singer for a long time, we hadn’t found one when we got asked to play at a Sept. 11 benefit show, so I sang,” he said.

Lee said his unique vocal style developed as he learned to sing over the band’s volume, but even after overcoming the volume challenge, he knew his time with the band would be limited.

Much of Cancer to the Stars’ materially focused on the concept of being sick, he said. “The band was tearing me up emotionally.”

“I felt like I had to make myself be sick to write for them. It was giving me all kinds of problems with drugs and alcohol,” he said.

In addition, said Lee, his father has cancer.

Lee quit Cancer to the Stars earlier this year and began writing and recording his own material ande he has written nearly 30 songs in the last four months, he said.

“Some are good spare folk things, some are poppier, dancier, almost British sounding,” he said. Lee wants to play all the beats and record all parts of the album himself, though he recorded versions of two of his songs with members of the band O Positive.

Working with the members O Positive also allows him to continue to work on his songs in the context of a band, he said.

Abr Abouelleil, an employee of the Broad Institute, said it was his first time at Toast and said he would consider returning to hear other musicians.

“I thought the atmosphere and the layout are great an unique,” said Denis Saulnier, who plays drums with Lee in The Gasolines.

“You listen to really talented musicians in the comfort of your own living room,” he said.

Saulnier’s fiancée, Liz McManus, said the two had never been to Toast before but had been to the Mexican restaurant formerly housed in the same building.

Saulnier and McManus said parking in Union Square was abundant, and potential patrons shouldn’t be so dependent on venues’ proximity to the subway.

The next Somerville News Friday Night @ Toast, Aug. 6, will feature Comedy and will be hosted by Erin Judge. Judge headlined the comedy night’s opening show June 25. The regular host, Baratunde, is the comic-in-residence at Harvard Square’s Comedy Studio for the month of August.