Joey Hendricks is a country singer-songwriter to watch out for in 2021. Having been signed to Sony Nashville, he has put out his debut single ‘Yours or Mine’ that has already earned a lot of attention and he’s set now to take 2021 by storm. Here, we interview Joey about his journey so far.
Hey Joey. How are you? Congratulations on your debut single, it’s smashing it. How has it been putting it out in the world during the pandemic?
Doing good thanks. It’s been kind of the silver lining for me during this madness that 2020 is, it was definitely a good experience for me because obviously this was my first time putting anything out as an artist, to see that it got the response that it did and that people were connecting to it, liking it, validated me and made me excited for what’s next. I’m just super excited.
Can you talk a bit about when it was written and the journey to putting it out?
I had signed a publishing deal about two and a half years ago, so that song is about two years old. I wrote that with my two buddies, Michael Whitworth and Daniel Ross. Daniel Ross went on to be my producer, so he produced the whole project that we’ve been working on. It was the first time that us three had ever written together and I’d say it came together in about 45 minutes, it was just a very natural connection we had as collaborators and songwriters. It came together really quick and it became one of my favourite songs, so when it became time to sign my record deal with Sony, it felt like it was a good song to start the story and start the process of everything.
I know you signed your publishing deal first and that was your immediate focus, so what was it that flipped the switch?
I think I always secretly wanted to be an artist, I feel like everybody who starts playing guitar when they’re like fourteen or fifteen on the side of their bed, it’s never immediately like ‘I want to write songs for other people,’ it’s ‘I want to be a rockstar.’ As I got older and I started writing songs, I’m naturally a little more shy and I can be a little insecure, so I started to stray away from that guy wanting to be in the spotlight. After signing a publishing deal and writing songs that felt like they were my story and I really connected with, it became harder and harder for me to imagine anyone else singing those songs. I felt like I’d be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t actually give this a shot. Now I love it and I couldn’t imagine doing anything other than that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXo0s5FNsOw&feature=emb_title
You were raised in Washington, which isn’t really somewhere I associate a lot with country music. I know the indie scene is really big there, so what was it about country music that made you want to move to Nashville?
I actually grew up on rock n’ roll, my dad’s music, he was always listening to the Beatles, so the Beatles were one of my first massive influences and The Doors, Led Zeppelin, a lot of these old rock n’ roll bands. When I started getting into music a lot more in high school, it was John Mayer, I feel like every guy my age says John Mayer as a massive influence. Neil Young, James Taylor and songwriters like that too. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I started researching guys like Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. I fell in love with the storytelling aspect of country music, so once I started doing that, all the signs pointed to Nashville. I was like ‘ok that’s where I need to be, that’s where the songwriting community is.’ It was just a natural progression that led me to Nashville. I would say that it’s my version of country music, I’m not from the country so I’m not writing about riding around in trucks or whatever, I think what’s really cool about the genre right now is how broad it is, there’s room for so much in there.
Country music now is so diverse and it’s not most people’s idea of what it is.
Yeah it’s all types of genres but it just works for country music. I love that.
What was it like then when you first arrived in Nashville? How did you navigate it when you first arrived?
It was a bit of a shock and a learning experience, I had just moved there on a whim, I didn’t know anyone there. I had saved up about $3,000 and it was the October of 2017, I just told my parents that I had to do it then, I wanted to be there and get started. I knew all the hard work ahead of me and I just wanted to get started on it. My parents were like ‘you should definitely go visit and see if you even like it first. There’s a good chance you get there and you don’t like it.’ If I went there and visited I would spend all my money, I may as well go there and stay there. I ended up going and getting a Craigslist roommate in Madison, which is about 15 minutes outside Nashville. Just by sheer luck, he ended up working on Music Row at one of the publishing companies down there. I could have ended up anywhere in any random house with strangers, but I happened to land in a house with him and he introduced me to all these connections and people I’m still friends with today. It just all seemed to work out, it was the first indicator that I was supposed to be there.
So how long did it take from there to getting your record deal?
It did happen relatively quick for me, because I ended up getting completely broke and I was planning on moving home actually within about 7 or 8 months. I was flat broke and couldn’t even really pay rent, I thought I was going to have to move back and save more money. My roommate though was like ‘you’ve already made it this far, you’re already in, you need to stay.’ If you leave, you’re going to have to restart everything again. I had just got a job at this juice place on 12th South, making açai bowls, I ended up cold emailing every publishing company in town, I don’t think I got any responses from anyone else except this guy who worked at Black River Entertainment who passed my name along to this guy named Tim Kuntze who is my current publisher. He brought me in for a meeting and asked him to play five songs acoustically, I played songs that I had written before I moved to town and he offered me a publishing deal on the spot. It was a whole whirlwind and I was so grateful.
He talked me into being an artist a month later, me avoiding it wasn’t going to change anything.
So you’ve got an upcoming EP I believe, what is that looking like and what are the songs looking like on that project?
It’s a pretty diverse group of songs, if you think of ‘Yours or Mine,’ completely scratch that. It still fits together cohesively, but there’s a good variety and there’s something for everyone hopefully. It’s coming out early in the new year, so I’m excited about that.
Well we’re excited to hear the rest of the songs on the project and we’re excited to hopefully get you over to the UK!
