Brent Rupard grew up in Kentucky and knew from an early age that he wanted to be a songwriter and performer. Rupard took a moment to chat with us about his new self-titled EP, now available on iTunes and Spotify. The EP features 6 original tracks of Rupard’s twangy yet traditional country voice, which will win his way into your hearts and onto your playlists. Learn more about this up and coming country crooner:
The Shotgun Seat: Who are your musical influences and what kind of music do you listen to now?
Brent Rupard: I am an old soul, I like old music. I was actually listening to my record player right before, listening to Merle Haggard. A guy I really, really love is Levon Helm. I love his songs with The Band. They sing songs like “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Weight” – maybe that’s ordinary, I don’t know. I also love Alison Krauss & Union Station, the bluegrassy music too. I love music, period. I could list for days my inspirations and my influences.
The Shotgun Seat: Tell us a little bit about your EP and the journey you have gone through before releasing it to iTunes/Spotify.
Brent Rupard: I’ve been selling this EP on the road for the past couple of years and I hadn’t put it on iTunes yet because I wasn’t playing a ton of shows then. I had just signed my deal as a writer at Sea Gayle Publishing so I was writing a whole lot. We made this EP and thought it might be special, if we only offered a hard copy of the music. Little by little I realized after every show I would go sign autographs and take pictures and I got to meet a ton of incredible people and I get a lot of messages on social media of people asking about the music and where they could get a copy of it. So we decided to make it available to everybody. The journey to get there is I’ve been writing for a long time and I recorded this EP with a guy named Bryan Simpson who I co-write a bunch of songs with and a guy named Justin Niebank who is actually a very successful engineer in town and they both produced this EP and we had a handful of songs to pick from. I am very proud of these songs. I have already recorded another record that I am very proud of as well and Bryan Simpson produced it. We are waiting for the perfect time to release it. The new album was recorded a little differently: live, organic, a little more down home Kentucky meets a little rock n’ roll kind of vibe.
The Shotgun Seat: “Atlanta,” the first track on the EP, is such a great song – can you tell us the inspiration behind that one?
Brent Rupard: I wrote that song with my buddy Bryan Simpon and Matt Jenkins, it’s a pretty true story. The foundation is the girl I hung out with in Alabama and the story goes that, “Just call me Atlanta,” because Alabama is hard to rhyme and it doesn’t flow well so I changed her to Atlanta, it sounded cooler. Simple story about me hanging out with this girl and she told me to call her Alabama because she wouldn’t tell me her name.
The Shotgun Seat: After listening through the EP, you have a pretty traditional country sound with a little bit of rock n’ roll. Are you looking to keep that your sound for your debut full length album?
Brent Rupard: I think the word for me is to keep the integrity in the music. I love a lot of different styles of music but for me as an artist I usually lean towards the traditional side because it is part of who I am, it’s the kind of music I really feel and is a part of me.
I never want to sway from that because country music has always been incredible to me because it told these stories. Even the songs about a sexy girl, they had this integrity and gentleman-like flavor to it, it wasn’t disrespectful. I will always hold on to integrity in the music and really write from what I believe and the stories I have inside of me instead of things that can seem shallow.
The Shotgun Seat: You started writing songs when you were 16. How has your writing process changed over the years?
Brent Rupard: When I first started, it was more of a therapy session for me. One of my friends fathers unexpectedly committed suicide and I went to my room with my guitar and I didn’t know if it was good or not I just had to express myself in that way and ever since then I couldn’t get enough of that. It was an outlet for me. Now I am very thankful because I am in these writing rooms with a lot of great people and as a songwriter people think it kind of falls out and it does sometimes but just like anything else you are trying to get better at, having people that are better than you at the time to work with always for me allowed me to start writing up, you start to see how other people open doors. Bryan Simpson who I write with a lot, who produces a lot of my music, he allowed doors in my brain to open up that I didn’t even know existed. By his ability, and watching him and how he approaches things and you just learn from each other. I have my circle of people, who understand Brent Rupard, the artist and what kind of music I am trying to portray to the audience and since that’s the case the heart of writing hasn’t changed that much since I was 16 years old it’s still an outlet it’s still something I write hopefully more by inspiration than for work. And there are days it does feel like work but I try to write more from my inspiration. I am just thankful for the guys I have around me because it allows me to keep that purity and innocence of why I started doing it.
The Shotgun Seat: Touring with Lone Star and opening for The Band Perry, Chris Young, Randy Houser, you must have learned so much. Tell us a little about the experience on the road with those big names.
Brent Rupard: Most of those acts have all been class acts to me, they are always super friendly. Most of them don’t forget that they were in my shoes riding around in a van in instead of a bus. So what I have learned from them is just that they are at the next level and they are keeping their humility in check.
The Shotgun Seat: What do you miss most when you are on the road?
Brent Rupard: I guess I miss my room, my time. I am usually around the guys in the band or I’m playing a show or I’m in a hotel with somebody or I am meeting people after the show there is never really alone time. I do love being around people but having that room time alone to watch tv and chill is something I miss.
Listen below to Brent Rupard’s EP and for everyone in Nashville, you can catch him playing Whiskey Jam this Tuesday night, January 5th 7 PM at the Basement East.