How did you get interested in playing music?

I was four years old in the back of my dad’s truck and the song “Pink Houses” came on the radio. I’m not really sure what it was. I decided I wanted to play music. For my fifth birthday, I got my first guitar, which looks like a ukulele. It’s tiny. But yeah, that was the first song I learned and picked it up from there.

Do your parents play music?

They do not, neither of them.

You mentioned “Pink Houses.” Do you have any other influences?

A lot. I think really what kind of got me into the style I’m currently making and stuff I kind of just recently recorded is like Luke Holmes, Riley Green, and then there’s a smaller artist, I was playing with Drake White and I love his stuff.

You said that you’re releasing stuff and you have released stuff. What is it like to write music? What’s that process?

It really varies. The thing is, like, in the moment, I never think about things when I’m doing things throughout my life. I mean, one song is kind of a beachy song in a way. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like a beach country song kind of. And in the moment of when I wrote that, what that story is about, I really wasn’t thinking about writing a song about that or whatever. When I was preparing for this next EP, I was like, just kind of thinking through the things I’ve done in the last few years and it’s just, it really does vary. I think, I mean, you kind of write about anything. It took a long time for me to kind of feel comfortable writing. I mean, I had writer’s block for the longest time and then I kind of just figured out how to work through that and just write down anything I kind of thought about.

How do you get through writer’s block?

I think realizing that whatever you write down, that the world’s not gonna see that. I think originally I was always like, oh, that doesn’t sound right, or that just kind of sounds stupid, or something like that. But just writing everything you think out, and just working through it. Also, I used to write the music first, and then go back and kinda write words to it, and then the stories weren’t exactly how I wanted the stories to be. So I’ve kinda done it the other way, I’ll just kinda sit down at the guitar, and write songs kinda through a story that I have, or something I want to tell.

Once you write that music, how do you record it?

Last October, I got to go down to Nashville, and at the Speakeasy studio, and it was amazing. There were a lot of great people there. Luke Holmes’ acoustic guitar player, we had one of Luke Holmes’ old producers, and Elliot Ditter was (there). I mean, he’s an amazing engineer. Michael Whitaker, who is a producer he used to work with, he’s worked with so many different people, and he’s just amazing. It’s really just getting the right group of people together that feel the same way you do about the music, and I think we had 13 different people record on those tracks, and yeah, just kinda comes together.

To get down to that studio, did you have to reach out to people, or how do you navigate that?

My manager reached out to the people he knew down in Nashville. I’ve built some connections–my manager has about every connection there is, all over. So yeah, I worked with him, and we got, like I said, just a great group of people together to record on those. I mean, I think we recorded 13 instruments, and it’s, yeah, it’s amazing. Wow.

What’s your favorite part about performing live?

Just the energy. It’s one reason I picked the upbeat country stuff. I just love the energy on stage and having fun. I mean, it’s work, but it’s not work. I mean, it’s getting to do whatever I want, and making the most out of it. So playing live is a ton of fun. I can’t wait, I have that show coming up for the release of these next five songs. We’re doing a waterfall release, which means releasing one, waiting a few weeks, and just releasing them kinda throughout a period of time, and then they’ll come together to be an EP at the end. And that process is like, we’re doing that release show on Mar. 20, and the first song comes out on the 21st, and we’re gonna have a lot of fun preparing for the show.

Is that at the Tarkington?

Yes, it is. It’s big. Yeah, it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

So you mentioned the EP’s coming out, I guess what’s in store for you in the future?

I think after this comes out, over the summer, we’re playing a bunch of shows, and then there’s a great guy I met over the winter here, Preston Cooper, and I’m playing a show with him. He just released his first single called “Weak,” and it’s an amazing song, and so I’m just excited. I mean, he released that song and he’s already up to like 70,000 monthly listeners, so it’s gonna be a lot of fun to kinda play with him. We’re doing a bunch of different, well, I’m doing a few things with him, and then going into the summer, playing a lot of shows, all fairs and festivals, and then getting around, we’re looking at shows in North Carolina, South Carolina, and kinda doing a loop through like Georgia, Florida, Texas, all that.

Have you accumulated a band of your own?

Yeah, I have. Over the last six months, I’ve picked up a band, and everything I play this year is a band, so I’m not doing any solo shows anymore, and I think I played 73 or 74 shows last year, and they were pretty much all solo. I think we did five or six things with a band out of that, so this year we’re doing as many band things as we can, really.

Do you have any particular memories that stand out to you from performing or even writing?

I think there’s a lot, a lot of different things. Especially once I picked up the band, over the last six months, we’ve played everywhere. We’ve played little neighborhood pool parties and stuff like that, so it’s a lot of fun to play in different environments. I mean, I’ve played on bigger stages with the band, and then small stages. And it’s a lot of fun to make music. So, yeah, not anything crazy that sticks out.