Latest / The Scene Projects / Emily Myers on Nashville's Music Scene, Independence, and Artist Success Stories

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Emily Myers on Nashville's Music Scene, Independence, and Artist Success Stories · The Scene Projects

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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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  I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is my friend Emily Myers.
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  Emily, welcome to the show.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  It this is so much fun.
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  I love it.
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  Well and I don't know where you're at.
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  It's a lot colder outside than it was in Tennessee when we met, but it's nice and warm
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  inside of my studio today.
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  So I'm grateful for that.
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  Well, I'm in Nashville.
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  I'm based in Nashville, and it is it is about as cold if you could believe it.
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  We had another cold snap.
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  So I am also in my studio not leaving as much as I can.
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  Fantastic.
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  Well, before we get into, everything that you're doing now, I'd love to give you floor
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  and and have you give us a little bit of your backstory.
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  Cool.
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  Well, I'm an independent country folk artist originally from the Missouri Ozarks, moved to
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  Nashville, believe it or not, in the middle of the pandemic, and I've been hitting the
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  pavement ever since.
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  My debut album called Lost released in September.
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  So it's it's been a really exciting end of the year getting that out and just connecting with
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  so many fans kind of around the world, putting that record out.
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  And yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  It's been a great journey.
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  I love The Ozarks, and I probably mentioned it when we met on the red carpet as well that I
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  was down there in Summersville, Missouri for a festival.
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  Absolutely gorgeous.
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  I grew up in the Black Hills Of South Dakota, and we lived in the woods.
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  Right?
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  Like, our backyard was national forest land, so I'm very used to that.
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  But being it's nothing like the Ozark is.
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  It's so different.
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  And I'm sure in the fall with all the colors changing everywhere, it's just gotta be
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  absolutely beautiful.
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  Not a whole lot different in maybe looks moving to Tennessee, but a little bit different by
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  moving from rural Missouri where everything is two hours away to moving to Nashville where it
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  might take you two hours to get across town.
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  Yes.
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  Oh, you couldn't have said that better.
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  It it's funny when I was driving in because where I'm from, I'm from Jefferson City
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  specifically, and it has those beautiful cliffs that are all through the Ozarks, right, and all
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  the trees on it.
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  And when I was driving into Nashville, I saw some of the same kinda cliffs, I was like, I'm
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  gonna be okay.
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  It it looks like home just slightly.
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  It's slightly slightly the same, but it is a very different feel.
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  It's funny.
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  We're, we're currently planning a tour for next year, and we're looking at playing Saint Louis.
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  And someone's like, well, that's not where you're from.
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  And I'm like, but it's two hours from there, and people are used to driving that.
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  And I was talking to someone who just they didn't grow up in that kind of area.
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  And I was like, that's pretty pretty normal.
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  So No.
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  I joke about it with this because, obviously, I made a lot of friends.
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  One of our hosts on the network, Wild Willie Thornton, he lives in Salem, which is two
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  hours, you know, or an hour and a half from Somersville.
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  And it seemed like everyone was two hours.
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  Jefferson City is two hours from from here, and it's two hours to get to there, and it's two
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  hours to get out.
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  I just like so is literally everything in Missouri two hours from everything?
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  Is that just how it is?
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  I mean, kinda.
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  I you know, when I I visited San Francisco for the first time in college, and I was with a
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  friend, and she's like, okay.
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  We're in this town.
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  We're in this town.
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  We're in this town.
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  And I literally told her, said, I've never been somewhere where there wasn't space.
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  There wasn't rural land in between towns.
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  That was just kind of you'd you'd you're not used to that where I'm from.
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  Yes.
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  And in South Dakota, there's barely towns.
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  There's just space.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  You know what?
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  I miss that sometimes.
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  I actually I've learned to I've learned to love that when I go back.
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  Yeah.
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  But Nashville now, and what a city.
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  That was my first time visiting when we were together there at the Josie Music Awards at the
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  beautiful Grand Ole Opry house.
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  What a town.
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  Absolutely blown away by what Broadway is.
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  I I landed there actually on Halloween.
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  So I was just it was to the max.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  But I didn't because I was on the tour bus, I I didn't have my own vehicle down there that I
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  was unable to even make it to Music Row or to get to really anywhere of the places where the
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  musicians and the players are hanging out, the Riders Browns, and I feel like I missed so
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  much.
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  And I'm already planning my next trip back there.
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  But what has your experience been like as a transplant to Nashville, which I'm sure a lot
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  of people are?
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  But what's your experience been like there the last few years starting from kind of falling in
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  there as a a country mouse, we'll say, and Yeah.
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  To where you are now?
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, I had such a strange landing into Nashville because I moved in the pandemic in
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  the middle of COVID, and that was obviously not the plan.
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  But I think what was so lovely about that was I got to meet people first as people because the
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  city at at the beginning was shut down when I moved.
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  And so I got to just kinda put some roots down.
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  And I think that I think that has been so lovely because this town I mean, they everyone
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  says it's run on relationships, but that is so true.
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  And that's what I love about it is the songwriting is built on friendships.
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  It's built on people who care about, you know, making great songs together, and that's the
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  root of a friendship, which is such a neat a neat community to have.
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  People who are all there to do their own artist thing, in short.
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  But, like, at the at the core of it, it's people who are all there to write great songs.
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  And that's just like, I get, like, chills thinking about it because that's that's unlike
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  any other place I've ever been.
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  And it's just really it's really special.
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  Right.
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  And you kinda touched on something there because I think there's probably two types of
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  people that that move down there.
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  You have these songwriters, and then maybe you have the singers or the people who want to be
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  performers and to do that.
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  And and there's very different motivations for that.
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  And, you know, it was obvious, you know, walking up and down Broadway.
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  The guys that wanna make a living playing, that's a grind, and that's there.
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  But that's a grind.
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  Before the songwriters, it's a much different it can be maybe a slower process, but also a
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  little bit slower lifestyle as well.
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  And and you're hitting the writers rounds, and you're making friends, and you're writing great
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  music.
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  It's really a much different world than someone who's trying to live on Broadway and to play
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  four shows a night and and Yeah.
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  And make a living that way.
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  Oh, absolutely.
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  And I think a lot of people don't realize that it's so different, that there are kinda
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  different lanes in Nashville.
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  I'm somebody who personally my heart is in the songwriting.
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  That is what I moved to town to be able to do first and foremost.
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  And so to be in a town, especially moving from rural Missouri where I was kind of one in a
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  million who did that, moving here to find so many people who did that and loved what I
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  loved, which was the craft of writing.
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  I mean, it it's so inspiring.
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  And there's also this feeling of, like, steel sharpened steel.
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  Like, you get to work with people who especially when I first got here, I got to work
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  with people who, quite frankly, were better than me, and then I got to rise to the
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  occasion.
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  And I couldn't I couldn't do that anywhere else, really.
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  And that's, I think, what's so great about it.
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  Right.
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  Well and something you touched on there is that you stand out at home, and I think I can I can
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  attest to that?
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  I grew up in a small town.
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  I still live in a small town, albeit a different name, and that we stand out wherever
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  I go.
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  But I also felt like when I went to Nashville and working the red carpet that it's like, oh,
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  you you can still stand out here as well.
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  It takes a certain kind of person.
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  And for me, that was very gratifying to know that, hey.
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  You can do this.
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  If you wanted to, and maybe not necessarily as an artist or as a songwriter, but you you find
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  a way to stand out.
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  Did it take you a little bit of time to adjust once the world did open back up and the town
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  opened back up to, oh, oh, to find your feet in the scene as it were?
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  Yeah.
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  I think so.
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  I think it wasn't hard for me to jump into collaborating with people just because before I
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  moved, I had come down a lot.
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  I really had kind of a feeling of what that will look like.
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  So that part wasn't hard.
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  I think what was hard was figuring out, okay, especially as I shifted more into the artist
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  lane than the songwriter lane, what makes you unique?
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  What is the story that only you can share?
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  And I think that was I think for I think for anybody, that's actually kind of a slow
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  process.
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  You kind of have to unravel that and figure out what it is that you have to offer.
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  And it it takes a lot of self reflection.
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  It takes a lot about looking at what's around you, who's currently on the radio, and where
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  maybe your your hole is that is not there, I think that takes a while to figure out.
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  I really do.
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  And so and so that's kind of been the journey I've been on for for the last few years
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  figuring that out.
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  We make the analogy a lot, you know, a big fish in a small pond.
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  And not only are you a little fish in a big ocean in Nashville, but now you're in a school
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  of fish that are all doing the same thing as you, and that can pose its own challenges.
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  And it really speaks to what you alluded to with relationships.
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  You have to be able to find your group, your smaller school inside of that big group that
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  you're gonna swim with and that you're gonna hang out and maybe you all make it together.
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  And I think that as time goes on, what you see happen is it's not necessarily one individual
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  that stands out, but rather it's a group that kind of rises together.
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  And that's why you see so many friends tend to make it in bunches that a a group of you gets
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  discovered because you've all been writing together and and participating in mics or
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  booking your own shows together that you kind of rise in that group rather than just as a
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  single musician.
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  Oh, I mean, absolutely.
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  And I think that is something that is so beautiful about this industry.
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  I mean, it it really is.
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  I've got a few people in this town that is just like, if I if I'm you know, we're writing a new
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  record right now and, like, they're the first people I call.
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  And it's because they know me, not just as a writer and as an artist, but they know my
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  family.
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  They know my life.
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  They know what I'm about.
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  And it becomes so much more than the music at that point.
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  It's really you're building community with somebody, and to make art with those people is
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  just it it's so fulfilling.
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  Like, no matter what it does at the end of the day, that is that is something really, really
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  special to do with a do with a community of people.
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  Right.
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  And speaking of a community of people, we would be remiss if we didn't double back and talk
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  about our experience with the community of the Josie Music Awards.
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  It was your first Josie's.
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  You just released the record in September, and you're nominated for an award with that right
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  away.
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  I mean, this has to feel like it's moving very, very fast even though your career has not been
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  exactly, you know, just started.
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  You've been in Nashville for a little bit now, and and it's taken time to get here.
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  But now that the record is out and it's been nominated for an award and what is it now?
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  You say you're already working on the next one as well.
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  So it feels like you're you're on a rocket ship, I'm sure.
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  Yeah.
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  It has felt that way for sure.
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  I think it was it was really powerful to release a debut record, and I met so many
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  people releasing it.
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  So many people from around the world even just messaging me online and getting to send my
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  record directly to them was a it's it's been an incredible experience.
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  And I had so many people come back and say, this is my record of the year.
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  And then to be nominated for something like that at the Josies, it was really cool because
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  the fans said they they got behind it, and they were like, this is so cool.
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  Like, this is how I feel about the record.
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  It was really cool to have the Josies recognize kind of the momentum that we all felt, if that
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  makes sense.
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  And that was just really it was kinda like an, you know, icing on the cake moment.
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  Just incredible.
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  And and I got to kinda tap in late to the game.
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  I I don't think I even applied for the media credentials until September.
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  Wow.
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  Yeah.
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  I was a little late, but we had won the content creator of the year award from the Midwest
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  Country Music Organization.
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  And I had 20 friends from that organization that were nominated for Josie's as well.
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  I, I'm also good friends with Jasmine Cain who was a performer and, now on a Josie award
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  winner.
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  And, we've been friends for twenty years, and I wasn't gonna miss her moment on that stage, in
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  that circle.
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  Whether she won or not, knowing that she was performing was a pretty big impetus as to why I
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  even reached out to Tina Marie and to Josie to say, hey.
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  I would really love to come in and bring my flavor to this beautiful cake that you're
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  baking
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  Yeah.
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  And to take part in it.
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  And, just an incredible experience all the way around.
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  They're doing a wonderful job with everything that they're doing.
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  Now did you attend the conference and everything on Saturday as well?
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  I did not, mostly because I didn't I didn't know about it.
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  It wasn't on purpose, really.
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  Well, I think it filled up pretty quick too.
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  So when I approached them even about coming over, it was at the Bel Air Mansion.
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  So what a cool place to go and hang out and to mingle with everyone.
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  Our good friend Brad Morgan, who's a a integral part of the Midwest Country Music Organization,
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  won an award there for his songwriting.
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  But it's a, it's really cool what they've been doing, and I don't think I'll be missing that
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  next year.
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  No.
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  I think that'll be on my list as well.
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  Now that I know about it, I will be there.
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  Well, it's just so much to know about these days, and you are finishing a record and and so
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  much to do.
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  Now I know that you're independent, which would mean that you're unsigned.
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  You're not under a label.
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  But do you have a team, a management, or PR, or any of that kind of working with you, or is it
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  all on Emily Myers?
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  I have a I I guess they're a marketing agency that I work with.
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  They work specifically with independent artists.
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  I actually I was with management, and I parted ways in December and moved into this marketing
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  agency more just because the music industry has shifted so much that some of those traditional
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  channels weren't making sense for me.
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  At at this level, I wanted to work with some people who were really, who were really, their
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  strength was in direct contact with fans.
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  And that's what this this group does.
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  And so they've helped me release the record, and they've helped me, you know, meet people
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  literally all over the world in the process of releasing it.
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  So other than that, it's it's about as independent as it gets.
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  No.
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  Good for you.
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  And that is where we've come in.
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  You know, I talk about them a lot on the show.
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  We offer, you know, services through our company as well, but a a company like
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  Indipreneur changed how I thought of it.
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  You know?
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  A guy like Rick Barker and Cheryl b Engelhardt.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Well and that's because that is what it is.
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  We all just wanna carve out a little niche for ourselves.
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  I don't think a lot of us are in this to become big rock stars and to be the next Lainie Wilson
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  or Jelly Roll.
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  But if we could just make a living doing what we're doing and to carve out a small niche in
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  there and a small group of fans, I think I'll I'll it gets thrown around a lot of thousand
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  true fans that are buying your records and supporting you can afford a pretty nice living.
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  So I I think that's really what I've been seeking out, and it's why I've started the
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  scene projects to be a platform to support independent artists that are taking that
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  avenue.
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  We're not necessarily here to do the intervals with the jelly rolls, although I would not tell
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  him no.
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  I'll actually be out at the Buffalo Chip Campground, next summer as well.
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  We've been invited.
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  The last year, we were one of their content creators, but Lainie Wilson is one of the
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  headliners.
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  So fingers crossed, I can get a few minutes of her time at some point and do some interviews,
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  but it's really about connecting with independent artists.
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  And and I bring up those two specifically because they were independent artists grinding
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  it out for so long before that break came their way.
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  And neither one of them, you know, jelly roll, I think it's his birthday today.
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  He's 41.
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  Laney, probably about to say, they're around my age.
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  And to see them making it later in their careers after they've been told no a million
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  times.
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  Right?
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  And a a woman like Alexandra Kay who we got to do a meet and greet with her in Sioux Falls
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  before she hit her meteoric rise now, and she's all over the place.
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  A big shout out to AK for being so gracious to us.
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  She actually, let me shout out my band over the microphone at her show.
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  And we were right front row.
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  My wife walked down the aisle to her song.
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  We actually have the sign that we took with us that she brought up on stage with her.
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  This was for, like, maybe 200 people.
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  Right?
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  It was a pretty small venue.
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  I think the next night, she was going up to sing at the North Dakota State Fair with Jelly
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  Roll, and then she was out on tour with them all last summer, right, and all last year.
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  And to see where I could go for someone independent who had been told no.
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  It's what's really kept me going and has kept me wanting to reach out to others in the
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  industry to have these conversations, to get your story out there because we don't know who
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  the next one of us is going to be.
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  It could be our beautiful friend, Emily Myers, who is the next big thing in country music and
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  out there, you know, sharing it with the world.
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  And I'm just sinking my hooks into as many coattails as I can, Emily.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  I, you know, I appreciate you so much.
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  People who are passionate about independent artists, it it's just it's such a special it's
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  such a special thing to do, and you can't help but root for people who have who have been at
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  the level been at the independent artist level and then seeing success.
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  Because they're only at that level because they built a wonderful group of people around them,
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  and I love it.
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  I love it.
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  Incredible.
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  Well, Emily, before I let you go, give you a chance to plug everything where people can find
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  you, where they can connect with you and become fans of your music and follow your career.
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  Go ahead and tell us all where they can find you.
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  Everything is under Emily Myers Music on all the social channels.
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  My website is emilymyersmusic.com.
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  Basically, if you can if if I'm on everything that you can look for.
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  So
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  Well, it's been such a joy to reminisce a little bit about my time in Nashville with you.
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  I will definitely be looking you up when I come back there, hopefully, in the future.
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  I think I got a trip down to Tennessee planned in March for another award show, so maybe I can
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  get over to Nashville for a couple of days and see some friends.
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  Emily Myers, thank you so much for being part of the scene.
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  Yes.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  This has been a wonderful chat.
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  I appreciate it.