On-location interview with a singer, songwriter, guitar player who just released a new album last month, on January 10th. At the end of October, he released a video for one of the songs that would end up on the album and it already has well over 41 thousand views on YouTube. He has an amazing story of getting out to southern California to perform at LAST year’s NAMM Show and in addition to performing at this year’s, he has shows coming up in late February on back-to-back nights in Georgia. He was on this show five years ago this month and has added two daughters to the mix since then, in addition to – on the music side – ventured into research and development with Vallhalla Amplification.
“I usually come up with the music first. That music is usually the catalyst for the lyrics.”
(right before the pandemic) “My second album … was hitting a bunch of Billboard charts. I was doing shows with David Allan Coe, Blackberry Smoke, and doing a lot of shows on the road and getting a lot of great press.”
“I had come from a career in the Navy and being away a lot from my family, to going right into the music industry and being on the road and just being busy. So, the pandemic in a way was a good thing for me personally because it slowed me down, it allowed me to really connect and bond with not only my kids but my wife.”
“The one guy slapped my hand and put $500 cash in it, and he said to me, ‘Get that (plane) ticket’.”
“It might be different for other artists. I think you should weigh the options and so on before you immediately say yes.”
“She really pushed me to follow that all the way (to California) and I was just like, it's either gonna do one or two things; it's either gonna, like, I'm just gonna play at local bars, or it's gonna ignite something.”
“I wasn't anxious or nervous about my ability to perform. I was nervous about not being remembered.”
“Literally the owner looked at me and was like, ‘What the f are you doing? Why aren't you doing anything with this? What are you stupid’?”
“I'm a lifetime member of the Americana Music Association. It's a different thing. It's not country. It's not blues. It's not rock. It's all of it. It's got folk, bluegrass, it's an amalgamation of all these types of music.”
“In a year I went from, I had no, even, aspirations of recording a new album or going back out on the road or anything else like that, to, within a year, recording an album, releasing it, releasing the video, going on tour with the Steepwater band out of Chicago in December, and then releasing the album January 10th, coming to NAMM, and then having plans on doing more road stuff and more videos.”
“I was at a point in my life where I didn't know. I didn't think I was gonna even do anything more in music.”
“Love of a Hurting Kind”
“Little Things”