Q: Hey, can you tell us a bit about where you come from, and what made you want to start a career in music?
A: I’m from Amarillo, TX, in the Texas panhandle – that square bit at the top of Texas. We don’t have a ton of live music here, but we have a lot of churches, so a lot of my music skills came from playing in church as a youth. I grew up hearing my dad play piano and my mom singing. We didn’t sing much together as a family, but the music made an impression on me. After some unsuccessful tries taking guitar and piano lessons, I ended up teaching myself by ear – I would hear songs from Coldplay or Explosions in the Sky and replicate them on piano. Eventually in high school, I started to write songs on the guitar and penned a demo album as a senior. From there, I was playing small joints locally, and I loved performing and the writing process so much that it just naturally followed. Somehow I entered college as a piano performance major and the music theory I learned connected with my natural ear for music. This helped me learn how to better arrange and compose songs. My career has been a slow-burner, but I wouldn’t trade any of the lessons I have learned along the way.
Q: And what other artists have you found yourself listening to lately?
A: It’s all over the place, so bear with me. My most recent Spotify listen is The Ghost of Paul Revere – my wife turned me onto them. They just released their final studio album. She also turned me onto twenty-one pilots – I’ve enjoyed Scaled and Icy. I’ve also been listening back to Hiss Golden Messenger’s last album Quietly Blowing It; it’s fantastic. One of my friends Charles Johnson also dropped an album last month called The Ladder, and I highly recommend it. And, finally, I’ve been listening to Antimai by The Dear Hunter. I’m a huge progressive rock / metal fan, even though my music primarily lives in a genre quite the opposite.
Q: Who were your first and strongest musical influences?
A: The first ones I can remember are bands like Coldplay, Explosions in the Sky, and Muse. Viva la Vida was the first album I bought with my own money, so it naturally has a foundational place in my heart. When I started listening to more folk and acoustic in high school, David Ramirez and Gregory Alan Isakov became my biggest influences. You can easily hear traces of their music in my own still today.
Q: You have just released your new single, ‘I-25’. Is there a story behind it?
A: Kind-of? It’s funny, I started writing that song when I was just noodling on my acoustic one day and came up with that lead line that the electric plays. Then I just let out a random line… “You remind me of a hard drink” and it just kind-of followed from there. The song is an autobiographical fiction, so it’s based off of numerous experiences I’ve had that combine for the song. It’s about the joy of a romantic moment shadowed by fear of the romance ending. The singer (me) is steeped in shame and is dreading the inevitable ruin that he might bring to the relationship. So it kind-of holds both emotions in hand at the same time. I wanted it to feel like you were actually driving down I-25 in Colorado and I think I succeeded.
Q: Can we expect a new EP or even an album from you in the near future?
A: Yes! “I-25” is actually the lead single for my next LP, Parables. It will come out January 2023.
Q: What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
A: Such a good question. This answer will probably sound like answers a lot of songwriters give, but I think what should resonate the most with listeners is the honesty in the lyrics. I know a lot of songwriters claim to be honest, and they probably are – but I really, really try to be unflinchingly honest. I want to write about things that nobody else writes about. I want to ask questions that nobody else asks. I could write about lost love and failed relationships, but who doesn’t write about that? I write instead about inward shame and questioning, struggling with faith and understanding, fighting to belong. I write about these because I’ve experienced these things. I think a lot of people have but it’s not talked about much. How would I personally describe my sound? I’ll use descriptors others have used for me – “Texas-folk” is a pretty apt description, or as one of my friends says, “like smoking a tobacco pipe after a long day of work”.
Q: Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more?
A: Yes-and-no. To be honest, just making a record from the ground up like I have three times now is fulfilling when you see it finished. There’s something about it that just makes you proud no matter how popular it becomes, like a sculptor standing back from a sculpture they just crafted. Of course, there’s a part of me that really wants my music to be heard by the masses – and at this point, it really hasn’t. So in that regard I am expecting more, especially from Parables. I put so much more into this record than my past albums and I would like a greater return. But in the end, I’m just happy to have made it, and happy to have done my best at it.
Q: Could you describe your creative processes? How do you usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song?
A: It varies. Sometimes I’ll just be playing my guitar and I’ll find a lick or a chord progression that sounds awesome – like “I-25”. But other times I’ll write lyrics first and bring music to it later – the closing track on Parables called “What If I’m Doomed” was written that way. Sometimes I’ll even get a topic in my head that I want to write about before any lyrics are down. Regardless of how a song starts, I usually go back and revise it a handful of times before it’s “finished” – typically changing around words or phrasing ’til it fits just right. And even then, once I start recording a song, I might get ideas and change a chord here and there. So a song really is never finished until it’s out.
Q: What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
A: Dang, goin’ for the deep answers now. This sounds cliche, but the two-ish years that Covid happened were easily the toughest years of my life. I know they were tough for everyone, but it had me down for awhile. I had just endured a difficult breakup when it hit, and then my roommates all moved out in a month that summer. I had to bounce around a few difficult living situations and that took me out of my creativity. I was also dealing with intense depression and shame. Most of the songs off Parables were written in the early months of Covid, but I didn’t have a place to let them mature, and I didn’t have a place to record. Writing is my outlet, and for a while, I wasn’t able to write. Add in that there was nowhere to perform here and I genuinely considered hanging it up for good. I’m glad I didn’t. Things have settled down since, and I’ve gotten married and she is very supportive of my creative endeavors. I’m grateful.
Q: On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
A: I’ll answer in regards to my music career. Six years ago I played at my friend’s college for a human trafficking awareness event. The cause itself was awesome, so I was happy to be involved. Well it ended up raining and I played in a dorm foyer for maybe eight people with no sound system, completely raw and acoustic. I don’t mind something like that, but you don’t expect it to be your shining moment. Anyways, I finished playing my set and noticed one of the girls watching me had started crying. Once I stopped playing everyone had dropped completely silent. Naturally, the attention shifted to her because she was crying! She looked up at me and said, “I really needed that. Your music spoke something to me I didn’t even realize I needed to hear.” These seemingly small victories in my music career are why I do what I do. If I can bless just one person with relatable stories and ultimately encouragement, then it’s all worth it.
