I’m trying to be a better citizen of my home state’s music.  Over the past seven years of playing music, I’ve met so many Virginia-based artists who make great music. Virginia’s talent pool runs deep. After all, we gave the world Morgan Wade, Pharrell Williams, Bruce Hornsby, Aimee Mann, and so many more. Hell, we gave the world The Carter Family - country music as we know it was born here. The music coming out of today’s local scenes across the commonwealth is insanely good and is worth celebrating and sharing. Mother Maybelle Carter, from Southwest Virginia. influenced the course of m ..read more

For longer than I can remember, I’ve been enamored with home recording. What made me want to switch directions and seek professional help (musically)? In 2015, I did my first ever recording session at a studio I won’t name in Winchester, VA. While I enjoyed the experience and got along great with the studio owners, I wasn’t head over heels with the recordings I received back. They didn’t sound quite like I wanted them to, and at the arrogant young age of 17 I thought “I can do this better.” Whether I could or not is still open to debate. By 2018 though, I had started getting the hang of it. I ..read more

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou That title probably has you thinking, “Brent, what is this LinkedIn bull-hockey?” You're probably onto something. However, this has been on my mind recently, and I’d rather share it here than on LinkedIn. Who I'm turning into as a person. While performing at Big Fish Cider this past weekend, a fellow named Miles approached me and asked if he could get his conga drums out of the car and join me for some songs. Since I didn’t know Miles and h ..read more

My route for the weekend. Between April 21st and 24th, I drove 350+ miles across the Commonwealth to play shows in Richmond, Dayton, and Huntly. This run of shows was significant to me because it was the first time since the start of Covid that I traveled overnight to perform in multiple venues. I intentionally avoided booking in 2020, really limiting it only to a few outdoor venues when I was offered. In 2021 I was still a bit wary, but started venturing out a little more. Still, I wasn’t really actively pursuing a lot of performance opportunities the way I had done before the shutdown.  ..read more

Hiking at Wolf Gap, on the WV State Line, Winter 2015 My mountain-bred folk songs feel a bit out of place in the Northern Virginia community I now call home. The country-tinged guitar and slight twang in my voice feel ill at ease between the high-rises and data centers.  As a child, I didn’t fully appreciate what my hometown gave me. I grew up in a small rural community nestled in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, the kind of place where the Census Bureau has to count the cows before they can even think about the people. I couldn’t wait to leave home and see what opportunities lay beyond ..read more

This past Saturday marked one year since I released my full-length debut, The Next Karaoke Star.  To say I was a bit overwhelmed by the results is an understatement. I’d never had a project receive over 1,000 streams in the first 24 hours, and a year later some of the songs are still getting streams every single day. I received enough pre-orders to press a limited run vinyl, which was a dream come true. The “how” still perplexes me, but my song “Still Feels the Same” ended up on Whiskey Riff’s New Music Friday playlist. That blew my freaking mind. The greatest th ..read more

For independent artists, insecurity is par for the course. Art is an expression of the soul, and the fear of something you poured your very being into getting rejected or ridiculed can be crippling. Creatives are often plagued with self-doubt, and it can be difficult not to give in to all the internal and external forces saying that we’re not good enough. Many creative people are also not business savvy, and get discouraged when they're unable to crack how to get their art out to wider audiences.  With so many factors working against them, it's no surprise that many artists are deeply in ..read more