- Hi Andrew, can you tell me a little bit about yourself before you became a country musician? I started taking piano lessons while my brother, a year older, was taking guitar lessons. Ben Eller was the guitar teacher and I loved what they were doing with the guitar. I wanted to switch and we shared an electric for quite a while. First time I went for a lesson, I think I was seven, and Ben said, “Your Mama may think we are going to play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ Not happening. We are going to play some Rock n Roll dude.” We started with songs such as “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple and then Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Ben Eller had been a part of White Chapel when one of the band mates went back to school for a while. When I was in 8th grade my cousins and I had a rock Christian band and we played in churches around our home and in Morristown. I played lead guitar but wasn’t singing at the time. I went to Nashville two days after graduation when I was 18 and met with a lady named Preshias Harris to talk about my potential career in country music. She had listened to my music and told my Mom she wanted to meet me.
- What was the first country album you ever bought? The Garden Spot Program by Hank Williams, Sr.
- What is the background story behind your latest song “Paint the Town Redneck?” Preshias Harris had the song and played it for me. I said that I loved the song and wanted to let it be my first to record. After meeting the songwriter, Steve Obrien, I was 100% sold on having that be my first recorded song.
- Is there anything new coming up with your music in 2020? Since meeting Steve O’Brien we have started writing together a lot and I co-wrote a song called “Stronger Than That” that will be released in late March. We got together at NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International) in Nashville to write and we had this idea for a slow/sad song and started writing out the lyrics but I just stopped and said, “Steve why don’t we make it more upbeat?” We then started writing it as a honky-tonk. Steve left the room to go downstairs, and by the time he came back I already had the chorus down! After that the song really just fell out of us and was written in no time.
- How would you describe your music in 3 to 5 words? Honest. Real. Traditional.
- What is your recording process like when creating new music? Go in to the studio with the lyrics on my cell and the melody in my mind. I sing it the way I think and work with the producer to get the very best we can.
- If you could sing a duet with any singer or group who would it be and why? I would love to have had a duet with Hank Williams, Sr. Also, Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Colter Wall and Tyler Childers.
- What is one of your favorite quotes? Mark Twain said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
- Is there anything else you would like to share? I am traditional country and I have influences from all over the map. In that way, I’m like Johnny Cash because he kept it traditional but he liked cowboy, western, blues and Americana. I think country music reflects the heart of our country’s pioneer spirit. I have always enjoyed the stories of the days of the western expansion, the building of the railroad west to Utah, and my favorite vacation was a trip out west with my family. I was about eight and my brother and I spent almost a day at the Cody Firearms Museum and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
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