Photo credit: Melissa Laree Cunningham
Tell us about your tour vehicle.
I’ve mostly toured a 2008 Honda Civic. I got rear ended on the way to my day job with it so I never had to pay for any major repairs. That car did its job honestly. It toured me and Stefan Prigmore around for a month in 2016 and for a whole month in the summer of 2017 opening for Parker Millsap. Almost three hundred thousand miles on it when it got totaled.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
I ate super cheap and healthy for the first couple weeks out with Parker. I mostly ate jerky that I’d made myself. A lady that booked us for a show in Oklahoma gave me some big bags of pecans so I was eatin’ jerky and pecans. When I got to Nashville that went out the window. My at the time manager took me around for all the Nashville specialties. Nashville hot chicken, the meat and 3 and greasy burger places. I had breakfast with Parker at a place called Skye Blue where they make a grilled-cheese but the outside of the sandwich is a hard shell of fried Cheese. Pretty Cool. I’m regretting that I had some kind of omelette instead.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I almost never break strings. I play mediums and heavies because I like that feeling of resistance. Never broken one on stage but did break one tuning up before a show. Had 5 minutes to change it out and get up there.
Where do you rehearse?
It’s just whatever room I live in at the time. Sometimes I really like to practice in the stairwell next to my parent’s garage if I’m at their place.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
I think I called it “Dogs at Your Feet” and one of the lines was “Nail through the earth, bleed through the cracks in my heart”.I was very emo.
Describe your first gig.
I think my 1st gig was a house show. There were 3 or 4 artists and Charley Crockett was one of the other artists. The audience seemed to be composed of former classmates and church members of the host, a 23 year old songwriter named Matthew Bridgman. He’s still one of my favorite writers in Dallas / Fort Worth.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
My last day job was valeting cars. My favorite day job was working construction with my friend Jet during the summer when I was in college. Jet’s Dad handled all the big jobs in this little town in northwest TX called Canadian. It was actually a really beautiful area and we would stay up late every night after working all day, listening to music on the porch. It was hot during the day but up in that part of northwest TX they have a lot of rolling hills and it dropped to a real nice temp at night.
How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?
In my earliest somewhat professional phase I didn’t know about merch. I only earned from the door or tips. I’ve had a couple nights in recent years where I made almost a grand in merch as a solo opener and those felt pretty great.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
I wish I’d traded the sight-reading ensemble for some business classes.