Garth Brooks had said about him, “This kid, as soon as he opens his mouth — you believe him.” A Nashville-based singer, songwriter, and guitar player originally from Pennsylvania, he walked away from a college baseball scholarship to pursue music and ended up in the top four on Season 11 of "The Voice." He has over a million streams on Spotify and the video for his song “Boots Like Mine” spent four weeks at Number 1 on the CMT Music 12 pack.
"I ended up making the decision to drop out of school and move back in with my parents. And, it was devastating for me to make that decision as a young kid. I think I was 19 at the time."
"One of the very first shows I played after I dropped out of school... it was my first show playing out by myself solo. And, I was nervous, I was scared. There was a lot of people that showed up. I mean, a lot of people... It just kind of went from there... Every weekend I was playing out."
"Each crowd and each venue started getting bigger and bigger and bigger and people started singing back my own songs and all the covers and stuff that I was doing and I was like, 'Man, well, I don't know exactly what I want to do with my life, so why not give this country music thing a shot'."
"(The Voice) was one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life, I mean, from top to bottom, from start to finish. It was great. From the cast to the crew to the producers to the coaches, everybody. It was just great. They really really took care of all of us out there. And I encourage anybody who is even thinking about giving it a shot to do it because you never know what's going to happen."
"What CMT has got goin' on over there with the 12-Pack Countdown, it's a great program for up-and-coming artists and artists that are signed and have been signed for a while... It definitely helped a hundred percent. I noticed a lot more exposure obviously with my music on Spotify... and it bumped up some of my followers on YouTube and Twitter and Instagram, definitely Facebook. Facebook followers went up a whole lot with the debut of that song."
"To have one video... on (CMT), awesome, great, very grateful. And then to have another video on there, it's like, 'Man, we must be doin' something right here'."
"There's a company that I use to help (Spotify) playlist my songs, and it's a company called Artist Formula. They're in California and they do a really, really good job. But anybody can use them too. So, you don't need an agent or a... PR firm or anything like that."
"I hope one day whenever we strike it big and make it big, I hope that feeling (of being an indie artist) never goes away because I think if that feeling ever goes away then I'm going to hang it up 'cause there's no reason to not feel like that."
"(Vinyl) is coming back around and I just think there's something so nostalgic and cool about that because CDs are almost obsolete now and it's cool to me that people are getting interested in vinyl again... I would love to put out a record on vinyl."
"When I got off The Voice, per my contract, I wasn't allowed to release any digital music or The Voice and their record label would own all that music."
"How Bout You"
"Boots Like Mine"
Bonus audio content with Josh Gallagher