ABOUT
Mutants of the East began as a passion project for Ryan Von Ghoulsworth, who spent decades immersed in Maine’s underground music scene. From 2015 to 2018, Ryan served as a producer for Damnationland: The Way Life Should Bleed, a film project that showcases Maine’s unique horror and film culture. It was here that he helped initiate the Damnationland: Music for the Wicked soundtracks, inviting local bands to contribute exclusive tracks to the movie showcase. This sparked his vision for something bigger.
Starting in 2019, what began as a mixtape exchange—christened Mutants of the East as a nod to both the Maine Mutant and Maine’s status as the most eastern state—had Ryan sending compilations of Maine bands to random people around the world. Ryan took his love for sharing local music to the next level by starting a radio show on WMPG in 2022—keeping the Mutants of the East name—where he showcased "macabre oddities" from Maine, unearthing obscure and rare tracks from deep within the state’s rural corners.
In 2025, Ryan took the next logical step and founded Mutants of the East as a record label, dedicated to preserving and promoting the diverse and often overlooked sounds of Maine. With a commitment to digging up forgotten gems and supporting new voices, the label continues to champion the state's unique musical legacy, from the eerie and experimental to the downright weird.
Ryan Von Ghoulsworth is a musician, VHS collector, and lifelong Maine enthusiast, born and raised in Auburn, Maine. Now living in Portland with his wife and a pack of cats, Ryan’s passion for his home state runs deep—especially when it comes to the rich history of Maine’s local music scene. Since the early 2000s, he’s been obsessively collecting releases from Maine bands, always on the hunt for the next hidden gem.
Outside of music, Ryan has a love for the eerie and unexplained, regularly going on ghost tours to uncover the supernatural history of his beloved state. He also has a quirky connection to Maine pop culture: during his time working at Dairy Queen through college, he had the honor (or perhaps the strange joy) of serving Stephen King, who would come in regularly to order the same thing each time— a small vanilla cone.
With a passion for both the strange and the nostalgic, Ryan Von Ghoulsworth has cultivated a unique blend of interests that celebrate both the spooky and the local, from the haunted corners of Maine to the underground music scene that shaped his creative life.