Singer, songwriter, guitar player who has released four singles in 2024, the most recent of which came out on June 28th. Just over four years ago he had a song that went viral and landed him national attention, and present day he has 880 thousand followers on TikTok, where he has had multiple videos get one or more million views, plus a combined total of 2.7 million video views on his official YouTube channel, approximately 950 thousand streams on his top five songs on Spotify alone, and more than 45 thousand monthly listeners on that platform. Based in the Florida panhandle, he will be performing in three weeks at the Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival.
“It debuted at number seven on the iTunes charts, and it was the first song I had to be played on FM radio stations across the country, a lot of them still play it. And I don't have a record deal or anything like that, so that's a pretty rare occurrence.”
“I taught myself how to play the guitar when I was about 12 years old… When I got old enough to be able to play in bars and stuff, of course I was in there playing in the bars and you know I was making 50 bucks a night or maybe getting free beer or whatever.”
“I would just kind of learn as I go along or look at those posters with the chords charts on them and just tell me where to put my fingers and then I would just listen to songs and try to play them by ear… and the same thing with the piano. I sat down in my grandfather's church, and he was a preacher, so I'd go to work with him and sit there at the piano and look at that poster and learn the chords there.”
“I had decided finally that I was just gonna go for it all and chase music full-time, and I had zero experience in social media. I didn't do it at all. So, I was playing bars five to six nights a week, not making very much money at all. As a matter of fact, I was living in a shed – a shed in a backyard – and I didn't have a vehicle anymore because mine broke down. I couldn't afford to fix it. I wasn't doing that great. It was like the bottom of the bottom, chasing that music dream thing. Yeah, it was pretty rough.”
“That thing took off like wildfire and that's when I ended up in multiple news stories done about me including the New York Times. They were the first people to ever fact check a song.”
“That is the first comedic type song that I ever wrote or did and the very first thing I had that went viral. I had maybe 1600 followers on a Facebook page at the time. I didn't have an active YouTube channel and when I uploaded it to Facebook it hit 14 million views eventually, on Facebook, and then I started my YouTube channel with that video, and it has over a million views now.”
“I feel like it's just a lot easier to write unserious stuff or humorous stuff for me because I think that's just my attitude anyways. Humor kind of comes naturally, so, I don't know, you can get away with saying or using words that are more simple when you're being humorous. You can get away with saying stuff that you would never get away with saying in a serious setting, or serious song.”
“When you first start, you're not going to get any views. That's just how it's going to work. I don't think I've ever seen anybody post their first video on TikTok and go super viral and gain a lot of followers. It doesn't happen like that but that's all right because it gives you a chance to practice and perfect your art and your craft.”
“I like to say social media is like, if a musician was up on Wall Street, like, social media is like your stock. So, a (record) label will look at you and if your stock is really high and you've got a lot of followers and interaction then you're worth more to them. But that's why they'll pick the guy that can have the mediocre voice over the guy that has a stellar voice because the guy with the mediocre voice has two million people watching him already and that's just business.”
“I want to be able to make a certain difference in the world and not just be a singer.”
“If you can build a social media following and you have a good personality and you’re authentic and people enjoy you and they want to follow you and if you can work hard enough to do that yourself you do not have to have a record label anymore.”
“I try to avoid what I call lazy songwriting, so, if I use the same word twice in one verse, you know, like the same rhyme scheme, same rhyming word or whatever, or if I use a basic simple word, I go through each line and say, ‘How can I make this a little more intricate but still simple enough to where it's completely understandable’?”
“TikTok believes I'm in some feud with the Dixie Chicks.”
“Take Me Back to the ‘90s”
“Whiskey Don’t Shoot Me Tonight”