Music Monday Featured Artist: Nate Smith

Recently signed to Sony Records Nashville, Nate Smith has hit the ground running. At the age of twenty-three, Nate had a publishing deal that didn’t exactly get him where he was hoping to be. Now, thirteen years later, through tragedy and resilience, Smith is releasing his music to the world on the largest platform yet. 2018 brought about a world of emotions to people across the country, but Smith experienced it first hand. Losing everything he owned in the Camp Fire that devastated Paradise, California, Nate and his family picked up the pieces of their lives and started over. Smith turned to music as a way to cope with the loss and hoped it would help others heal as well. The music that came from the wildfire inspired Smith to move across the country to Nashville, writing music and playing dive bars along the way.

Smith reminisces about when his love for music started, “I started playing music when I was a kid. I would try to mimic Garth Brooks and Elvis as much as I could. My brother and I always laugh about when we were young and had bunk beds. I’d be on my bottom bunk at 2 o’clock in the morning on a school night impersonating Elvis’ ‘Uh Huh Uh Huh’ over and over again until my brother would just yell at me to shut up!” From there Nate was in various bands and served as a worship leader in his church which he admits helped build his confidence when it came to being in front of people. “I’ve done a lot of crazy things for music as well. I moved to L.A. when I was 21, was on MySpace, and emailing the A & R departments for the major record labels including Atlantic, which…I don’t know how, but I ended up getting a meeting with them! I couldn’t believe the wild things I just went for, but I was going for it!”

In 2021, Smith toured with Brett Eldredge and is currently slated to hit the road with Mitchell Tenpenny and more. On April 9th, Smith is making his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, also gracing the stage alongside his most recent duet partner, Tenille Townes as Keith Urban headlines the evening. After taking a chance and directly reaching out to one of his favorite female vocalists, Tenille Townes, Smith landed a duet collaboration with Townes on his previously released song, I Don’t Want To Go To Heaven.

“I just feel lucky that I get to be the messenger for these songs,” says the rising singer-songwriter. “I’m not here to be cool or anything like that. It’s literally just to hit people in the heart. Now that I’m a little bit older, my mission is to bring hope to people. It’s not about me. I’ve been through a lot and there are those who have been through a lot more than me. It’s about the movement and writing music that touches lives. We definitely have the fun drinking songs, but we have a lot of songs that touch the heartstrings.”

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