I wanted to be a cowboy really bad and my parents definitely realized and I think I realized at some point that I was no good at being an actual Cowboy so maybe the closest I could get was to sing about [Music] them every reason in the world to give up if you miss [Music] meent obviously I've got you know uh sonically reminiscent sort of thing going on from the 90s stuff but it's kind of I I feel like I cut my teeth on the same stuff that the '90s guys uh cut theirs on for one
thing I'm honored that that people see me as you know sort of a a spearhead or a a leader back towards uh traditional country music or or country music the way that I fell in love with it and uh you know still love it's a fun spot to be in uh I think it's a lot of just the right place right time sort of a thing you know country's always been country music has always been cyclical it kind of you know we we've got our bread and butter The Roots the traditions where we came from
and something new and you know a little edgy comes along and everybody gets excited about that for good reason and you know kind of run with that for a little while until people are like yeah but this is where we came from and let's get back to it a little bit and so I think I came along at the right time for [Music] that roll wild I was playing piano before I played guitar but for whatever reason I didn't have a whole lot of interest in uh chopan and Bach and Beethoven and stuff like that
um if somebody could have taught me to play piano like Pig Robbins maybe I would have been excited about that but it uh the style of music I was into the guitar lend itself more to that I guess so um I kind of kicked and screamed through uh shoot it must have been 7 or eight years of piano lessons and they finally gave up on that I guess but I love guitar I I played probably from the time I was seven to 15 I played guitar for shoot two three hours a day probably I just
loved [Music] it you mentioned the family band thing we kind of stumbled on that by accident we were I started playing guitar my sister Maddie she's a year and a half older than me she started playing fiddle about the same time and then shortly thereafter my little brother joram he's a year and a half younger than me uh he started playing mandolin and then my oldest sister lak was one taught us piano lessons she picked up the Basse uh so we had us a little four-piece bluegrass band I guess and uh well it didn't start
out as a band we were all just kind of learning the instruments in independently of one another a good family friend of ours he was actually our orthodontist he'd heard we'd been playing a little music and wondered if we'd like to open up for the paty Klein Musical that was coming to the local high school and my dad was like well Randy I don't know you're going to have to ask the kids I'm not going to answer that for them so I I don't remember this but I've been told the story enough times uh I
guess he put me on the phone and Randy asked if we'd like to play a show and I was like yeah we'd love to play your show and uh when is is it and he said well it's a couple months from now I said well Perfect by then we'll know some songs and we'd love to play your show so that was kind of how the whole family band thing started and I guess we never gave it up for about the next 10 years gone alone I really didn't dive into writing much till I started coming
to Nashville um my producer Carson Chamberlain uh was kind of the guy that brought me to town he kind of posed it as a question to me whether or not I wanted to be a writer or whether it was important to me to write my own songs and I kind of just said I don't know but I'll try it out and uh so we did and he set up some co- writes for us and uh dove into it and I I really enjoyed it mostly written with a bunch of old school writers guys that were
having hits in the 80s and 90s and stuff like that um and a big thing I feel like that I've picked up is don't try to be too tricky with the lyrics or the word play or stuff like that just like say what needs to be said that you know gets the message of the song across and makes people feel something I've been slowly going out of my mind I think that's you know another thing that's a bit of a Dying art in in Nashville or just songwriting in general if I just wrote songs about
my life my life's pretty boring so I think people would lose interest pretty quickly but if we stretch the truth a little bit comes from somewhere honest and then you know kind of make a story that's Universal out of it the day we wrote it we kind of sat around after we got done making the work tape and it was like dang this thing might have the makings of a first radio single uh which was kind of funny sure enough that was the first single we put out to radio um I think it's a great
introduction to me and my music it's you know that's one of those songs that doesn't have a big story to it it's just kind of fun and a toe Tapper a and song uh type of thing and we uh I'm super excited about the response it got from everybody at radio and uh it's kind of like well if you like this one great and if you don't I don't know that there's much different coming so wish I could say I miss you kind of crazy the response that people had to I never lie and I
don't know that I would have picked that one to be you know the next one that uh blew blew up like that it I think that's one of the most country things on the album you know between that and maybe use me or something those are just old school country ballad type of things and so for people to gravitate toward those it's cool for me I love [Music] it I just got a new guitar I love how that thing sounds you know just sitting around messing with that I've had a few new ideas come out
uh you know just musically um and heck it can be as little as something you see on a t-shirt or a billboard or whatever that you you know pull out and think hey that could be a song title or a hook idea or whatever um but yeah I think the biggest thing is just uh you know living life and trying to find a clever way to put what you're feeling what you're seeing into words and uh something that other people can resonate with as well I love fiddle and steel guitar and and that old school
type of song and it doesn't need to be old school it's going to keep moving forward and and keep progressing and and keep being fresh and new but the biggest thing I think is exactly that that just the songs mean something and they say something and uh keeps making people feel something she cried when I left her now I cry to forget her I I don't think what I do is ever really going to change all that much obviously I love all different types of music um you know I think it's interesting Ray Charles is
a great example of he put out that I know at least one big long country album uh well I say country he covered a bunch of country songs but did them in Ray style and so that kind of thing intrigues me a lot you know find some songs from genres you know that I just love the songs and rework them to be exactly what I do uh you know and give a different little perspective on that song uh but yeah I don't I don't you know you're not going to hear me put out a rock
and roll album or a ray gay album or anything I don't know you never know I I'll Never Say Never I'll say that but uh yeah for right now I feel like I'm doing exactly what I love to do and and hopefully uh PE other people fans and everything keeps enjoying that kind of thing uh for a long time and I'm going to keep doing it whether they do or not I suppose [Music]
