I’m the youngest of six, born in the small southern town of Blakely, Georgia—twenty minutes from the Alabama line.
Growing up, my parents moved wherever the work was, so we lived all over the Southeast, rarely staying put for long. Later, my dad kept books for an interstate road-building company, which meant wherever they laid roads became home. Looking back, that nomadic childhood taught me how to read a room, connect with all kinds of people, and feel at home in unfamiliar places—skills I lean on every time I write a lyric that sounds like the truth.
I started singing around five, and when we moved to Nashville when I was eight, I fell hard for Country Music. I even got my first taste of the stage there, playing “Father Christmas” in a school production. When we eventually left Nashville, I felt—quietly but clearly—that I belonged there among the songs and lights. I didn’t complain. Moving was normal. But the seed was planted.
In my pre-teen years, music lived in me through church choir and the radio. In one small Georgia town, the high school band even let me tag along with the drumline. My dad had been a drummer when he was younger, and I like to think some of that rhythm found its way into me.
By my teens, I had my first guitar lesson in Glendale, Arizona, and soon after I was singing in choir and writing poetry—my first real doorway into songwriting. Acting pulled me back in too, and I found my way to the Montgomery Little Theatre, where I fell in love with how story and music can live in the same breath. One of the shows I did was Oklahoma!—which is fitting, considering I later ended up living there with my wife, who was born and raised in Oklahoma.
In 2014, songwriting stopped being something I dabbled in and became something I pursued with intention. It's also the year I began writing with—and learning from—several hit songwriters in Nashville. Today, I’m still learning, still writing, and still grateful for the road that brought me here.