Ian has been playing music since he was young. Inspired by his parents and his elementary school music teacher, an ethnomusicologist, he started to play music by leaving Final Fantasy VI running in the background and playing along to the game on the piano.

He has since learned several other instruments over the years including bass, guitar, bodhrán, Irish bouzouki, Irish whistle and low whistle, smallpipes, concertina, accordion, Irish tenor banjo, mandolin, and taishōgoto. He has spent a large part of his life studying Irish traditional music. Ian has been a session singer for a number of professional recordings for movies and television.

He is also a club DJ and travels frequently to perform in a variety of different venues. He enjoys exploring different musical cultures and genres. He received an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from UC Davis in 2013. Since 2015, he has immersed himself in the video game music scene as a musician, arranger, and composer, frequently collaborating with a number of different musicians and bands on recordings and performances.

Ian plays Irish whistles from the collection of Frealon Bibbins. Ian plays an Irish bouzouki and mandolin made by Macdara Ó Faoláin.