Skip to main content

Nashville-based singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist whose latest single just came out two weeks ago, with an album coming in mid-August. To date, he has recorded five critically acclaimed albums. His 2022 album charted “Number 1 Added” on NACC Folk, as did his 12-song release at the end of last August. On the heels of THAT project, he amassed one hundred thousand monthly Spotify listeners and over two million cumulative views across Vevo and YouTube. In addition to being a poet, he also has had a career as an entrepreneur that he talks about here, including its impact on his music career.
Send your questions or comments about this episode via https://featuredup.com/nhte

Notable Guest Quotes

“I write mostly by myself on guitar and so I hear the songs hundreds of times with just me and a guitar before getting in the studio.  And so, a lot of what the listener’s hearing is really the first time I've ever heard it that way also.”

“People ask me a lot, do you think you're ever going to get bored with it?  Are you ever concerned there's not another song?  And I've never been concerned about that.”

“That's pretty much how my songwriting goes; by the time we're in the studio, I'm sort of on the next album already.”

“I've been devoting a lot of my time for the past number of years to a solar power business that my brother and I and a couple partners formed… We've actually grown one of the largest renewable power plant development companies in the States.”

“I really began writing poetry way back when and then moved into songwriting.”

“I really enjoy the process of letting the songs, uh, getting a different interpretation, having other instrumentalists on them.  So, I really do enjoy the process.  Even if I could play all those instruments, I think I would probably want to hear what the songs sound like through someone else's technique and vision.”

“I really have a pretty simple and distilled approach to songwriting, and I suppose it might apply to creative endeavors in general.  But to me, it really boils down to three things: observation, empathy and rhythm.”

“A song really needs to be both personal and universal and without the empathy, it can just become quite personal without any universal aspects to it.  So that's really the relatability.”

“The music industry today is certainly still going through a lot of changes and vastly different than it was years ago, and some folks can point to the cons, other folks would point to the pros, and there's certainly some of each.”

“You can also use animation to put a twist on a song that might not have been there just in the lyrics, so it's a fun way to keep expanding on the song.”

“I'm not as big a believer in AI as some folks.  Actually, I think it's neither artificial nor intelligent.”

Songs on this episode

“How to Bleed”
“Darlin’ in Me”