A chat with Collin Nash about music, Part 2 | The Focus Insider

Then that band ceased, and “I was left with all the sound equipment because everybody else retired (from performing),” he said.

A relative suggested that he start “doing your own thing.” Nash did that, and booked a concert.

“The first concert I ever did was in a barn loft in Cuba,” he said. “I didn’t even know the people. They paid me 50 bucks for four hours of playing. I was so nervous. They finally told me, ‘It’s OK, you can start playing.’ I got through it and fell in love with (performing). I think I was 16 years old. No, I was 15, because my mom was driving me to gigs.”

“I started creating the Collin Nash thing, this brand,” he said. “I was writing and listening and learning. It’s been all downhill from there. This is our fourth year into it, and we’re doing pretty well,” he said.

“Ever since I was 14-15, I was steady minded. I loved to play Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, all the country stuff I was surrounded by. I really haven’t strayed too far from that,” he said. “That’s the long version of how I came around to get the sound I got now.”

What is the Collin Nash brand?

How does he describe his music? Is it country, outlaw country, country rock, rock’n’roll, Texas/red dirt country?

“There are a lot of variations aren’t there?” Nash said. “I would say that we’re more on the rock’n’roll side. I love country music and I started out as a kind of Nashville country artist. But as I went on writing songs and stuff I realized ‘Hey it’s alright to be who you are and let that come out’ so the songs we’ve been having the last two years and playing have been more on the rock side, but they’re not NOT country. The lyrics definitely are very much so. It has a lot to do with where I’m from.”

Said Nash: “We do really good with the red dirt scene. We do really well with the red dirt crowds. They buy in with what we are doing. We’ve been very fortunate. We haven’t really met a group of people who didn’t like what we are doing, so people aren’t putting us in a brand or anything, just we are who we are and they just like it.”

But he acknowledged, “I love the Texas red dirt stuff, and I would be on that side of the fence of the Texas songwriting. At least what I’ve seen, and what’s getting played on the radio, Texas is kicking Nashville’s butt when it comes to song quality.”

He is trying to change that, though: “Now, I live in Nashville and I write songs as a published artist and writer, and I’m here to tell you, for as much crap and flak as Nashville gets, there are incredible songwriters down there, writing amazing songs.”

He added, “KZNN’s usually pretty good about playing the good stuff. If there’s a good song, they’re going to play it.”

Are there people buying into his sound the way local townspeople have?

“Absolutely, man. I’ve had three outside cuts, three other artists who have recorded my songs, “he said. “They’re not huge names yet, but they’re getting bigger. Eric Van Houten recorded Runaway Love, which I wrote with him and a buddy, Drew Dixon. And Drew Dixon cut another song I wrote with him and another guy. Then a song I wrote myself for a girl, Riley Renee, from Fort Smith, Arkansas; she recorded it, “Take Me Home Tonight.”

“I’ve had major artists put holds on my songs,” he said. “That means ‘don’t record that’ until the artist makes a decision about it.”

Nash said, “The outside thing is really going good. I’ve met my heroes, written with my heroes. I have written some incredible songs I didn’t think I was capable of writing because people around me encouraged me. I am by no means the best songwriter in Nashville, but I feel like I’m going to be someday because of the people around me.”

So it appears that Nash, who is now a mere 21 years of age, indeed has a career as a Nashville singer/songwriter, a career that is gaining momentum and the attention of other more established singers and musicians.

It is a risky career choice, perhaps, but he is working hard at it, probably harder than he did when he started that career in high school, working weekend gigs when he was an upperclassman at RHS.

He has come a long way from the days when he was Little Elvis.

And Nash is quick to give credit to his supporters in Salem and Rolla, his two hometowns, for helping him achieve the successful steps he has taken in his musical career, steps that include recordings.

“We put out an album when I was about 17, five songs I’d written myself. My brother-in-law recorded some of it at a mule farm near Salem that has a little studio,” he said.

But most of it was recorded in a room at his house with a mattress over the door.

“This year we just put out another record with a couple of songs I wrote with people I met down in Nashville and stuff I’d also done by myself. I produced the record myself, and we recorded the way records used to be recorded–just get in a room and play live. Like all the great acts did. We played live and captured it. We thought we were tight enough and we did it.”

Nash said he has another acoustic record that is coming out the end of December or first of January.

“I recorded that with Matt Nolan, who played keyboards with John Fogarty,” he said. “We also did this Blackbird session with Catfish who is doing a documentary about up and coming artists who are between a local act and a full radio artist touring nationally. We recorded three acoustic songs.”

Nash said early next year, the band will have the opportunity to get to work on the first full-length recording. The previous ones have been EP recordings.

“We’re really excited about that,” he said.

“We just road-dogged it”

The band members are Dylan Voss, lead guitar; Dalton Brown, bass guitar and Chance Bones, drums.

“Dalton is my cousin by marriage. He has been with me pretty much since the beginning. There have been only three shows Dalton has not played and two of them were the first two. He joined on the third show,” Nash said.

The other two are guys he met in the music business, and the whole band is young. “We’re 20, 21, 21 and 23,” he said.

“It’s just us four guys. We’re going to be adding a fifth next year, but it’s been us four this last year. We just road-dogged it. All the time. We just got back from North Dakota,” he said.

They’ve been traveling constantly.

“We’ve definitely exceeded 80,000 to 90,000 miles. I’d say 100,000,” Nash said, sitting behind the wheel of the van. “We got this back in June. We love this van. It breaks down every other trip, but it means a lot to us.”

Touring this year has been longer trips.

“This year we haven’t been out as much, but we went a lot farther and played as much,” he said. “We went to Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri, of course. We really kind of reached out there.”

The Thanksgiving weekend shows at Tater Patch brought an end to the 2017 touring schedule.

“We’re excited to see what next year brings,” Nash said.

Music reflects his upbringing

Nash’s songs reflect his years in Dent and Phelps county. He writes about the lakes and streams, about grandparents and love, about rural values. It may sound rock’n’roll, but a lot of it is pure country, lyrically speaking.

“I’m like an old soul, man,” Nash said. “I like doing it the old-fashioned way, kind of the cliché way. We started a band, bought a van, and we travel all over the countryside making music.”

Nash said, “I’m just a kid with a dream, but there are lots of kids with dreams. I just hope I can chase mine down.”

Pausing reflectively, the interview coming to an end, he said in summary, “That’s all. There ain’t much to me.”

If you’ve read all the way through this two-part story and listened carefully, maybe even looked him up on YouTube, you should not agree with that final summation.