The Sit Down with Colton Dawson
One of the hottest artists to watch on the country music scene, Colton Dawson is blazing a trail from his home in Arizona to Music City and beyond. His smooth vocals, sharp guitar work, and honest storytelling are quickly setting him apart in Nashville’s new wave of traditional country. With a breakout performance at a sold-out Ryman Auditorium opening for country hitmaker Clay Walker, just him and his guitar, he received not one, but two standing ovations. With a debut album in the works and a busy couple of weeks ahead, playing shows with Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson, Colton found some time to hang out with us over Zoom to tell us all about his new single “Piece Of Heaven”.
it's great to meet you Colton, you're a guy that a lot of people have been saying really cool things about and it looks like you've got a really exciting couple of weeks coming up when you’re playing shows with Lainey (Wilson) and Cody Johnson.
“Yeah, I'm really excited about it, you know, this weekend we go out with Lainey and then the night after, I’m with Cole Swindell. It's super exciting for me because there's a kind of a different approach to these big venues, it’s one thing to play in small clubs and stuff but there’s a different learning curve when you're playing big venues, so I'm excited about that and I'm looking forward to it.”
When you get to play those big shows and go on the road with artists, as much as getting in front of a new audience, a different audience who don't always know who you are, as a younger artist, it must also be a great opportunity to pick things up from guys that have been on the road a lot longer. Then like you say, learn things about adapting from the smaller club shows up to these kind of big kind of stadiums and arenas.
“Yeah, I mean for an emerging artist, you just kind of have to learn as much as you can. Like I said, there's just a different art to demanding a stage that big and not only that, things like your monitors and stuff like that, which you don't usually use in small clubs and stuff that I've played, so, yeah, it's gonna be exciting to see how to figure it out.”
it's great to meet you Colton, you're a guy that a lot of people have been saying really cool things about and it looks like you've got a really exciting couple of weeks coming up when you’re playing shows with Lainey (Wilson) and Cody Johnson.
“Yeah, I'm really excited about it, you know, this weekend we go out with Lainey and then the night after, I’m with Cole Swindell. It's super exciting for me because there's a kind of a different approach to these big venues, it’s one thing to play in small clubs and stuff but there’s a different learning curve when you're playing big venues, so I'm excited about that and I'm looking forward to it.”
When you get to play those big shows and go on the road with artists, as much as getting in front of a new audience, a different audience who don't always know who you are, as a younger artist, it must also be a great opportunity to pick things up from guys that have been on the road a lot longer. Then like you say, learn things about adapting from the smaller club shows up to these kind of big kind of stadiums and arenas.
“Yeah, I mean for an emerging artist, you just kind of have to learn as much as you can. Like I said, there's just a different art to demanding a stage that big and not only that, things like your monitors and stuff like that, which you don't usually use in small clubs and stuff that I've played, so, yeah, it's gonna be exciting to see how to figure it out.”
In terms of your style musically, you’ve bought into this more neo-traditional sound, when you were starting out, who were the really big influences that made you want to shape that as a style that you wanted to make?
“Well, you know, it's just what I grew up on and the great songwriters as well and Haggard was one of the biggest influences for me. I think that just kind of like shaped my sound, I don't really try to do anything that's hot or do anything that works, I just do what comes out. I had a lot of great music playing growing up and I think that attributed to it but Haggard's probably my biggest influence as far as songwriting, musicality and everything.”
One of the things I've seen from clips on socials is you're a really handy little picker, how long have you been playing guitar for and did you teach yourself?
“I first picked up guitar at probably ten, I kind of fiddled around with it growing up and it was my favourite toy, but that's when I first started playing it and then I started taking it kind of seriously around fourteen or fifteen. I mean, I took lessons for a few months when I just kind of was first starting out, but mainly I would just see somebody else playing, try to figure it out, learn it by hearing, you know, that's how you play guitars, you steal stuff from other people.”
Then when did the songwriter side come in? I know that “Piece Of Heaven” which is the most recent track that you put out was one of the first songs that you ever wrote yourself, so when did you actually first start sitting down with a guitar and trying to put lyrics behind it rather than just playing away?
“Well, the first time I did it, I didn't have a guitar or anything. The first song that I wrote was in math class, I was sitting in math class and like I said the influences I grew up on were true songwriters, then my dad had written songs, I was playing and singing, so I was like, you know, maybe I try to write something myself. So, I just kind of wrote down some lines and in my notebook, then I got home and put it to music. That was the first song I wrote and then the second song I wrote was actually the one that we just put out this last week and I wrote that on a houseboat in Canada, which I just got off again as I just flew in yesterday. It's been super fun how it kind of snowballed into a real love of songwriting.”
With “Piece Of Heaven” it’s a slightly older song than some of the other songs you've been putting out recently, why did you decide that now was the right time for this one? Why did you feel it was a good follow up to the ones that you put out in May and June?
“I think what I'm trying to do right now is put out diverse tracks. I want to put out some tempos, I want to put out some ballads, I want to put out some waltzes and that's kind of the approach. The first one “Might Be In It” is what I would call a tempo, “It’s Gonna Rain” is a ballad and “Piece Of Heaven” is the waltz because a s I'm opening up this catalogue of stuff that we've been working on, I just want to introduce people to my sound and show them the tracks. “Piece Of Heaven” feels like a long time, well, I wrote it three years ago but, that's kind of how everything is in the music business, most things when they come out, artists are already so sick and tired of it because they've been hearing it for two years.”
“Well, you know, it's just what I grew up on and the great songwriters as well and Haggard was one of the biggest influences for me. I think that just kind of like shaped my sound, I don't really try to do anything that's hot or do anything that works, I just do what comes out. I had a lot of great music playing growing up and I think that attributed to it but Haggard's probably my biggest influence as far as songwriting, musicality and everything.”
One of the things I've seen from clips on socials is you're a really handy little picker, how long have you been playing guitar for and did you teach yourself?
“I first picked up guitar at probably ten, I kind of fiddled around with it growing up and it was my favourite toy, but that's when I first started playing it and then I started taking it kind of seriously around fourteen or fifteen. I mean, I took lessons for a few months when I just kind of was first starting out, but mainly I would just see somebody else playing, try to figure it out, learn it by hearing, you know, that's how you play guitars, you steal stuff from other people.”
Then when did the songwriter side come in? I know that “Piece Of Heaven” which is the most recent track that you put out was one of the first songs that you ever wrote yourself, so when did you actually first start sitting down with a guitar and trying to put lyrics behind it rather than just playing away?
“Well, the first time I did it, I didn't have a guitar or anything. The first song that I wrote was in math class, I was sitting in math class and like I said the influences I grew up on were true songwriters, then my dad had written songs, I was playing and singing, so I was like, you know, maybe I try to write something myself. So, I just kind of wrote down some lines and in my notebook, then I got home and put it to music. That was the first song I wrote and then the second song I wrote was actually the one that we just put out this last week and I wrote that on a houseboat in Canada, which I just got off again as I just flew in yesterday. It's been super fun how it kind of snowballed into a real love of songwriting.”
With “Piece Of Heaven” it’s a slightly older song than some of the other songs you've been putting out recently, why did you decide that now was the right time for this one? Why did you feel it was a good follow up to the ones that you put out in May and June?
“I think what I'm trying to do right now is put out diverse tracks. I want to put out some tempos, I want to put out some ballads, I want to put out some waltzes and that's kind of the approach. The first one “Might Be In It” is what I would call a tempo, “It’s Gonna Rain” is a ballad and “Piece Of Heaven” is the waltz because a s I'm opening up this catalogue of stuff that we've been working on, I just want to introduce people to my sound and show them the tracks. “Piece Of Heaven” feels like a long time, well, I wrote it three years ago but, that's kind of how everything is in the music business, most things when they come out, artists are already so sick and tired of it because they've been hearing it for two years.”
Going down that route and there may be some things that you can’t pass the full details on but I know you’ve been working with Roger (Springer) quite a lot and also with Chuck Ainlay in the chair so I guess these songs will tie together at some point. What stage are we at? Are you still writing towards it with Roger? Have you got some bits to do in the studio? Are you kind of waiting for Chuck and his guys to do their bits? Or is it a case of bit you're itching to get things out and people telling you to hold your horses?
“Well, I mean, I'll just say that if it was up for me, I would have put it out already, but you know, sometimes you’ve got to, I guess, build anticipation. I don't know what kind of the strategy behind it is, but I’ve got a great team behind me, I really believe in them, they believe in me and yeah, we’ve recorded a full project and that'll be coming out sometime in the next couple of months, I guess.”
I mentioned Roger was a co-writer on the first two songs, what's he been like to work with and almost like a mentor as someone to learn from through the whole of that co-writing process, because I guess that when you're writing songs on your own, it is a very different process to going into the room with other people. It's not quite the same as writing some ideas down in math class and trying to put it to a guitar, so how’s he been to work with on these new songs?
“Roger's been a huge blessing for me. Like, we went on this fishing trip together last week and we tried several times to sit down to write a song but just couldn't really get anything rolling and then, when we were five minutes from his house, I had a title pop into my head so I said what do you think about this title? He said, let me put it down in my phone or whatever and I was like, do you want to write it right now? He said yeah, so we wrote it last night. That's an example of how casual it is, we just write for fun and obviously, when it's time to get into album or project mode, we know what we’ve got to do strategically and kind of build these songs around a project, which is what we did for the first one. That’s kind of what we're doing for the for the next upcoming project but yeah, it's been a huge blessing and I've learned so much from him. I still learn a lot from him every day and he's been a big part of this whole thing.”
There’s a couple of other names amongst the co-writers for the first two of those songs, Kenny (Whitmire) is someone who I see you with quite a bit on your socials, then you’ve got Wyatt McCubbin who has done loads of things with Zach Top and Aaron Watson too. That must be really cool as well to have lots of different ideas kind of coming in to take what you've got and be able to take it even further.
“Yeah, it's great. Kenny was like my first best friend when I moved to town and we had started a day with Roger, writing that first song and got halfway through it, then we were writing with Wyatt the next day and we brought that to Wyatt, then we finished it up. It just shows how small this town really is and how kind of tight-knit the group of writers are. There's a kind of a tight-knit group of writers that do the traditional stuff, then there's a group that kind of does the more modern stuff and there's so many different avenues of country now, which is a good thing because it lets a lot of listeners in.”
“Well, I mean, I'll just say that if it was up for me, I would have put it out already, but you know, sometimes you’ve got to, I guess, build anticipation. I don't know what kind of the strategy behind it is, but I’ve got a great team behind me, I really believe in them, they believe in me and yeah, we’ve recorded a full project and that'll be coming out sometime in the next couple of months, I guess.”
I mentioned Roger was a co-writer on the first two songs, what's he been like to work with and almost like a mentor as someone to learn from through the whole of that co-writing process, because I guess that when you're writing songs on your own, it is a very different process to going into the room with other people. It's not quite the same as writing some ideas down in math class and trying to put it to a guitar, so how’s he been to work with on these new songs?
“Roger's been a huge blessing for me. Like, we went on this fishing trip together last week and we tried several times to sit down to write a song but just couldn't really get anything rolling and then, when we were five minutes from his house, I had a title pop into my head so I said what do you think about this title? He said, let me put it down in my phone or whatever and I was like, do you want to write it right now? He said yeah, so we wrote it last night. That's an example of how casual it is, we just write for fun and obviously, when it's time to get into album or project mode, we know what we’ve got to do strategically and kind of build these songs around a project, which is what we did for the first one. That’s kind of what we're doing for the for the next upcoming project but yeah, it's been a huge blessing and I've learned so much from him. I still learn a lot from him every day and he's been a big part of this whole thing.”
There’s a couple of other names amongst the co-writers for the first two of those songs, Kenny (Whitmire) is someone who I see you with quite a bit on your socials, then you’ve got Wyatt McCubbin who has done loads of things with Zach Top and Aaron Watson too. That must be really cool as well to have lots of different ideas kind of coming in to take what you've got and be able to take it even further.
“Yeah, it's great. Kenny was like my first best friend when I moved to town and we had started a day with Roger, writing that first song and got halfway through it, then we were writing with Wyatt the next day and we brought that to Wyatt, then we finished it up. It just shows how small this town really is and how kind of tight-knit the group of writers are. There's a kind of a tight-knit group of writers that do the traditional stuff, then there's a group that kind of does the more modern stuff and there's so many different avenues of country now, which is a good thing because it lets a lot of listeners in.”
We talked before about how you’ve got a busy couple of weeks coming up but looking back to last month and CMA Fest, was that the first time you had been involved as a performer and also it must have been incredible getting to sing in front of Randy Travis with Emily Ann Roberts like that.
“It was crazy, it was my first CMA Fest, so I kind of didn't really know what to expect and that was like the first thing we did during the festival so that was my first introduction and it was incredible. Randy's obviously a legend and a hero of a lot of people, then Emily Ann is also a very talented, up and coming artist too. She's killing it right now! That moment was very real for me, just incredible to be up there singing for Randy and Mary.”
Lastly, I'm here on the other side of the pond and you've probably spoken to a lot of people that have made it over, is that something that's a goal for you to try and dip your toes in the water and make your way to the UK and Europe?
“I would absolutely love to. I think the only limitation there is when you go to the UK, you have guys have different power for all the band gear and everything, but people figure it out. But I would love it, I would love to come over there, to Australia, France and wherever just because I'd love to see those parts of the world and I know how important country music is to the fans in the UK. I would definitely come across a pond given the chance.”
“Piece Of Heaven” is the new single from Colton Dawson which is out now and available HERE. You can details of all of Colton’s upcoming US tour dates on his WEBSITE and follow along to see all that he is up to socially over on INSTAGRAM & TIKTOK.
“It was crazy, it was my first CMA Fest, so I kind of didn't really know what to expect and that was like the first thing we did during the festival so that was my first introduction and it was incredible. Randy's obviously a legend and a hero of a lot of people, then Emily Ann is also a very talented, up and coming artist too. She's killing it right now! That moment was very real for me, just incredible to be up there singing for Randy and Mary.”
Lastly, I'm here on the other side of the pond and you've probably spoken to a lot of people that have made it over, is that something that's a goal for you to try and dip your toes in the water and make your way to the UK and Europe?
“I would absolutely love to. I think the only limitation there is when you go to the UK, you have guys have different power for all the band gear and everything, but people figure it out. But I would love it, I would love to come over there, to Australia, France and wherever just because I'd love to see those parts of the world and I know how important country music is to the fans in the UK. I would definitely come across a pond given the chance.”
“Piece Of Heaven” is the new single from Colton Dawson which is out now and available HERE. You can details of all of Colton’s upcoming US tour dates on his WEBSITE and follow along to see all that he is up to socially over on INSTAGRAM & TIKTOK.