From American Idol to Nashville Star - Garrett Jacobs Rise in Country Music

Hailing from Valdosta, Georgia, and raised in Boseyour City, Louisiana, Garrett Jacobs stole hearts on American Idol Season 16 with soulful renditions like “It’s a Man’s  World,” reaching the Top 14. Now 25 and based in Nashville, he’s signed with Sony Music Publishing and CAA, cementing his rising star status in country music. With hits like “The Healing,” “Just Like You” (#5 on CMT’s 12-pack), “Already Ready,” “Downhill,” and “Young Love,” Garrett’s heartfelt vocals and Southern roots shine. His newest tune just released "This Thing We Call Love" is destined to be a hit. Catch him lighting up stages, like his recent gig at Nashville’s Analog. Now here's The Trout with his exclusive interview with Garrett Jacobs.

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Transcript

Garrett Jacobs Nashville Star

This thing we call love Been tearing me up This pain inside my chest It hadn't left me yet And I'd love to leave her But I can't get away from This thing we call love This thing we call love Hailing from Valdosta, Georgia, and raised in Bossier City, Louisiana, Garrett Jacobs stole hearts on American Idol Season 16 with soulful renditions like It's a Man's World, reaching the Top 40. Now 25 and based in Nashville, he's signed with Sony Music Publishing and C.A.A., cementing his rising star status in country music. With hits like The Healing, Just Like You, No.

5 on CMT's 12-pack, Already Ready, Downhill, and Young Love, Garrett's heartfelt vocals and southern roots shine. His newest tune just released, This Thing We Call Love, is destined to be a hit. Catch him lighting up stages, like his recent gig at Nashville's Analog.

Now here's The Trout with his exclusive interview with Garrett Jacobs. You didn't start at a young age and go, I want to be a recording star. Did you melt into it more when you were older, like in high school? Is that the way I understand it? So I always had the dream.

And it's funny, I'm kind of in the middle of reshaping my brand right now. And I really need to rewrite my bio. Because my bio feels a little overcooked.

I want it to be more genuine or something. But that being said, I've always wanted to do music. I remember seeing my mom sing in church when I was four or five years old.

And thinking that was cool. And always singing on the radio. I feel like as long as I've been able to talk, I've been singing and always had some kind of thing in my head.

And always thought about being on stage. But when I was in high school, that's kind of when I found country music. I grew up in the South, so it was all over the place.

But when I heard Whiskey and You by Chris Sableton for the first time, and I was like, what is that? That is awesome. And that's kind of what got me into country and blues music. But when was the time that you said, okay, I want to go from a kid that wants to write music to taking it more seriously? Like, I really want to get into this.

Yeah, so I went on American Idol when I was 18. Oh yeah, we're going to talk about that because I'm going to interview two people from there. How old were you when that happened? Actually, I was a senior in high school.

I auditioned for the show when I was 17. And that entire process, I think it was the third day of Hollywood Week or something, because I was a minor at the time. I turned 18 on the Friday at the end of Hollywood Week.

So after that, my mom went home because they weren't obligated to pay for her stay anymore. But anyways, my mom was there during Hollywood Week, and I looked at her and I was like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do anything else, knowing that this exists. I feel like I have to chase this while I can.

So when I got off the show, I got off the show in April of 2018. Who won that year when you were there? Matty Poppy won. And my best friend, Caleb Lee Hutchinson, got second.

But I got off the show in April of 2018, and I was living in Nashville by August. And I just kind of, it was a God thing. I knew somebody out here that needed a roommate, and I just came out here.

I had four boxes and a guitar, and he had a spot that was furnished. So I just was here. Well, I think the funny thing about it, too, is you could have taken another path.

You could have got up there with all those people and just had the fear of God in you, because you're working with a huge organization. And you're going from zero to 250, 400 miles an hour, because you're immediately exposed to what it's like at the top of a corporation, a music, a media corporation. It's TV, dude.

It's TV. Yeah. And you could have easily gone, okay, let me go back home and play a few bars, and I'll be happy.

It's interesting. You went the other way. You said, okay, this lit me up.

I got to do this. And it wasn't even the TV aspect of it that did it for me. It was being surrounded by so many people who had the same love for music that I did.

Talking about the contestants and everything. Because I had a great time on the show, but at the end of the day, it is just a TV show. They care about the music and the audience cares about the music, but at the end of the day, it's a TV show and they're trying to get ratings.

So it wasn't that part that intrigued me as much as I was 17 and still learning how to sing. And being around these people that are my age and older who seem like they're masters to me. I was like... One, it made me be like, I need to be way better.

And two, it just... I don't know, when you have that much energy of the same thing concentrated in one place, you either love it or you hate it. And I loved it. Well, I think part of it is exactly what you said.

It's the energy. Yeah. When you go down to Nashville, you live in Nashville, and you go down Broadway or you go to muscle shows and you hang out with these people.

They're all... It's going to mind think you're all doing the same thing. And I think what changes it too is two things happen to you. You realize you're probably not as good as you thought you were.

Yeah. That'll scare the crap out of you. And the other thing is you're exposed to people that are in the... I call it in the club.

Yeah. You're in the club. And then you get to talk to people that have been doing it, and they can give you some insight.

But at the end of the day, it's all about talent and drive. Yeah. So you come back from American Idol, get exposed to that, and you say, I'm going to move to Nashville.

You move in with a friend. What happened after that? So when I moved to Nashville, I had been told by plenty of people that if you want to make it anywhere in town, you have to write. I'd never written a song when I moved here.

I mean, I had a couple of co-writes here and there through people that I'd met that honestly were just like throwing me a bone. I had no business being in the rooms that I was in sometimes, but they were helping me out. But for the first six months, I basically sat in my room every single day and wrote songs, and that was it.

And all of them were bad. But you have to do that because that's just the process of filtering out. It's the trial and error, you know? And you go through that thing where you write a song, and because it's brand new, you're super excited about it.

And then you listen to it the next day, and you're like, this is not good. It's not good. And it's also extremely humbling, you know? Earlier, you talked about how you get somewhere and you realize you're not as good as you think you are.

If anything, this town has taught me just to stop thinking that you're good at all. Just do what you do. You think positively about yourself and you believe in yourself.

But at the same time, the second that you think you have something figured out is the second that growth stops happening, and that sucks. I'm always wanting to get better. So putting yourself in the mindset of everybody has this more figured out than me, and I'm just chasing it the only way that I know how.

Everybody is like anything else. Tiger Woods did not come out of the womb playing golf. Yeah.

It just doesn't happen that way. He did come out of the womb wanting to win, though. That's true.

That is true. It's the same thing with what you do, and that is it takes drive and determination. The drive is a lot.

And I think the other thing humbling is when you go to the studio and you're getting ready to… I'll never forget when I did it. And I went to the studio, first time I recorded, and I'm standing in front of, I don't know, a $10,000 Neumann mic, and I'm starting to sing, and I'm going, oh my God, I gotta get better real quick. The first time I recorded my vocals, I was at Burton Studios in Shreveport doing a couple of demos.

And I was like, wow, this is hard, you know, like hearing your voice in your ear for the first time. Just that is a whole new experience. Now being in the vocal booth is one of my favorite places to be, you know, just because from writing so much and doing so much stuff with track guys and producers in the room like that.

That's one of my favorite places to be, especially when you're on a new song, because the creativity that happens is like endless, if that makes sense. And I just love that flow. Well, and the other thing that's weird about it is you gotta get used to hearing your voice the way people hear your voice.

Because the first time you hear it, you're like, who's that singing? It's like, well, why does it sound like that? Because it's not in your head. And you have to get over that. Okay, so you started writing.

When was the next break or something that happened to you that kind of drove you like, I need to keep driving down this road. Yeah, for sure. So, um, I started writing.

And then through a couple of co writes I had, I've written a couple songs, we decided to start putting them out. So I started putting out my own singles, and they were more of a pop country vibe, mainly because I was still figuring out who I was as an artist. And so I was just, you know, feeling it out and just putting things out there.

Um, just to make myself known in town and after Idol, and everything. And, um, I have a song called Just Like You, and we made a music video for it. It ended up getting on CMT.

I think I saw that. I read about it. Yeah, it did decently well.

And just for a couple years there, I was just grinding, chasing the thing that I thought Nashville was, you know. And then the fast, I'm gonna skip a little bit, because fast forward to now. I realized, like, I did that for, I don't know, 12, 15 singles, or something, and the music was growing and progressing the entire time.

But I realized, you know, one day I sat down and I asked myself, like, why are you making the kind of music that you're making? And I realized it was because, you know, I liked it, but I was also, I was doing it because I thought it's what people wanted. You know, and I thought that's what, you know, was going to get me to the next step in town or whatever. And I wasn't necessarily worrying about making music that I thought was cool.

But if you look at all the greats and everything, they find originality because they're not trying to do something that already exists, you know. 100% correct. I started wanting to make music like what I grew up listening to, which was like Bill Withers and Sam Cooke and Chris Stapleton, even with a little bit of Ronnie Millsap.

And just, I grew up listening to a bunch of different kinds of blues and soul-influenced music, and it was not coming through in my project. And I was just tired of making music that sounded like it was made on a computer. So I just started basically, it's funny, I signed a publishing deal at Sony Music Publishing in 2021.

And for the first three years of that, I was mainly chasing cuts, you know, because I was thinking, you know, if I can get a number one song on a different artist, it'll help my artist career. And also it would be awesome to not be broke, you know. That is kind of important, yeah.

Yeah, but then I realized that wasn't working and that was really hard. So I just started using my demo budget to basically find my own sound with studio musicians. And through that process, Sony Publishing started realizing like, hey, you're doing something kind of cool.

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Your financial success starts here. And I started working with Chelsea Kent over there, and she's the one that introduced me to Rob McNally. And he started producing my stuff.

And now we're where we are now, where I'm recording my first ever full album and doing it with studio musicians. And I feel like I actually feel like a real artist for the first time. You know, I moved here and I was trying to figure everything out.

And I was green and I was growing and just learning and soaking up everything. And now I feel like for the first time I'm taking all of that in and trying to apply it to make something that has never been there before. Everybody is influenced by somebody.

And you could be original, but that amalgamation of people that you mentioned to me earlier, those all have influences on you. And it's funny, I like pointing them out to people. So I interviewed a great blues guitarist a couple three months ago, and she came into town doing a gig.

And she's a mostly slide guitar player. She got off stage and I went over and talked to her and I said, you know, I heard something there. And she goes, what? I said, I heard a Johnny Winterlich.

And she just smiled and she goes, yeah. And I was listening to another blues artist and I said, Freddie King, right? And he goes, yeah, yeah. So even though you're trying to find your own way, you can't help but be influenced by all that.

And I think the great thing, trying to hide it is dumb. I think the greatest thing you can do is give it a little nod. Like with a lick or something.

For example, I've got a song on the record coming out called Devil's Two Step. And it is inspired by, like in country music, there used to be so many story songs. And I've always loved Life in the Fast Lane by the Eagles.

So that song, I got together with my buddy Rusty Kelly. And we wrote a song about a guy and a girl. And we wrote this story around them, kind of like Life in the Fast Lane.

And to give a nod to that in the production, Rob laid down some sick harmony parts on the guitar like the Eagles would do in the chorus. And I love doing that because it feels like you're honoring where something came from, if that makes sense. Yes.

And the one thing I do know, and you probably figured this out on your own since you've been with them before. No record label spends a penny on somebody they don't think is going to do anything. They just don't.

And it is a risk. But also, what I like about your story is so many of the A&R people now, I think they just watch TikTok. Oh, they do for sure.

And to be clear, I'm not with a label. No, I know that. But I know who's helping you do this album.

So, somebody's helping you. And nobody does that just because, oh, I think he needs a break. No, that's not the way it works.

This is a business. Yeah, the people that saw you… You said it earlier. They've been awesome, dude.

Yeah. And then you get to go out because that's the other thing, too. There's two parts to it to me.

You can be yourself, but you also know you owe them for helping you. So, you know, that's part of it, too. So, you're going to try to do what you do anyway, but you're not sitting around worrying about, okay, we got five more minutes in the studio.

Okay, that's it. We got to get out of here today. I can't afford to go because you're paying for it.

Now it's a whole different ballgame. All right. So, you've been working on it.

Have you got all of it finished? Have you done it? So, we've got the first four. We've got eight recorded so far. Okay.

And of those eight, three are out already. The fourth one is coming out in… Is one of them Fool's Gold? Yeah, Fool's Gold just came out last Friday. And, yeah, so off the project so far, we have Crazies going around, Wishing Well, and Fool's Gold.

My next single is called This Thing We Call Love. And then two weeks ago, we just got back in studio and cut four more, and we're going to string those out after. And then I think we're going to start packaging stuff together at the beginning of the year.

I wish that I could just drop them all at the same time, like Kendrick Lamar or something, but I'm not, you know. Well, let me tell you, even big names, they all say the same thing. We all say the same thing.

I'm going to go do an album. But they don't usually drop an album. They drop one song off the album.

And then a month later, two months later, because I remember… I'm trying to remember who it was that said this very famous artist. He said, everybody watches series. They want to hear a TV show, but they don't want to listen to the whole series at one time.

So it's like when I was your age, we bought albums and sat down and listened to the whole album and recorded them or whatever and listened to the whole thing. Well, that's how I still listen to music. Well, yeah.

But the world's not like that anymore. No, they're not. And I think the advantage you have to a certain degree… I'm from the old school.

Somebody like that, you grew up in the, you know, streaming world. You already know how it works, you know. And it's like, okay, but you also know, like you said, to become popular.

But at the other end of the day, you're not going to make any money off streaming. You're only going to get known. But then you got to go on tour to make money.

And that's all I want to do. The entire reason I'm doing this and everything in my whole marketing strategy and everything that I'm putting my foot forward in. I am just trying to find my audience and the people that enjoy the music and me and what I stand for so that then I can go out and play shows.

Because if I'm playing shows and I can have enough money, all I want to do is be able to buy a house. And then I'll be good. I'm living the dream.

I can pay my bills and tour and make music and not have to get a real job. This is awesome. That's all I want, dude.

And it's not a big ask. Some people want to sell out 20,000 people arenas or whatever it is, which is great too. But as you go up in that food chain, the more headaches become.

The logistics and all that cost more money and all that stuff. But I did notice though that you still go out and I assume you still do. I saw it on Instagram.

Do you do a lot of stuff where you just go out and sit down, bring your guitar and sing? Yeah, I do it all myself. I like that. I do it all myself.

And now when you're talking about big venues and everything, it would be cool to do that. And I'm just seeing if that's what God has written in the cards for me. But I don't think that you get there without worrying about the first steps.

If you're sitting there dreaming about that and you're wanting somebody to push a button for you. And you're wanting to sign the deal that's going to put you in the rooms with the writers to get you the number one song. To get on the radio.

That's just plug and play. But you're not making anything real. There's a reason why artists like Cody Jinks and why artists like Kip Moore and artists like Cody Johnson and stuff.

They have the careers that they do and they have job security. Because no matter what happens, there are people who love them and their music and are always going to be a fan. And that's what I'm interested in creating.

I don't want to just be on the radio so that I could say I had a number one song and feel like I'm at the top. I don't care about that. I believe we're put on earth to genuinely connect with people.

And add something to their lives. And it's true. There's nothing better than playing out.

It doesn't matter whether there's 100 people or 10,000 people. It's just more people. And people appreciating your music.

And as you're building up your career. And it's very rare that you find people that got up to the top, so to speak. That have not paid their dues along the way.

And it's like, oh, overnight succession. I've been doing it 10 years. That's typical.

I've been working my whole life to be an overnight success. And people don't understand that. But I think there's also an unwritten rule that you have to do that.

I hone in on people that still write their own music, want to do their own thing. Everybody still needs a great producer to work with. There's nothing wrong with bringing in musicians.

When I put my first album out in 1994, my producer and I were co-produced. He was the engineer of the studio. I said, I'm just going to hire studio people.

He knew the great people to hire. And that way, if it works, if the chemistry is there, it works. If it doesn't, you just get somebody else.

And like you're doing, like I did, you're the boss. So you need a list of people. But you can't get a better person than Rob McNally to tell you the stuff.

And to keep you genuine. Because that's hard sometimes. Because it's easy to follow the crowd.

Oh, I want to be like Heath Urban. I'll just write songs like Heath Urban. Or I'll do songs like Jelly Roll.

Well, they already exist. Yeah, they already exist. But then you just want to copy it.

But it sounds like to me that you're doing, which is not unusual anymore, the independent artist routine. But you do have some people that are really interested in you. Yeah.

What's the talk around people? You were talking about the young lady. The lady that introduced you to Rob. What did they say to you? Go out and do your thing? I'm just curious.

They encouraged me to remain creative. And remain myself. And remain positive.

That is the main thing. They help a lot with logistic things. Right now I'm trying to plan a backyard tour.

And small shows around the Delta. And stuff like that. So they help with the logistic things on that.

And they facilitate booking the studio and everything. But when it comes to just thinking about what's next and everything. They just encourage me to be me.

And find what I want to do. And then when I find what I want to do. I bring it to them.

And then we figure out how we can make it work. That's kind of the dynamic that we have right now. And it's really awesome.

This whole thing happened because I thought. Rick, I'm going to be honest with you. In November, I was coming up on the last year of my deal.

And I was like, I'm going to get dropped anyways. Because I'm not making these people any money. So I might as well just start making dope music.

And not care about what my red balance looks like. Because I'm not going to make any. So I basically just started doing stuff without asking permission.

And I just got lucky that they thought what I was doing was cool. But you go back to American Idol. Yeah.

I always tell people this when I watch it. I don't care how good you are or how bad you are. Taking that chance.

And saying, I want to try to get on American Idol. Just try to get on. To get past the first level.

That's a self-confidence thing right there. Yeah. Now did you send a video in? Or did you go there and try it? So I did both.

I sent a video in. And the producers liked me. So they asked me to come to New Orleans.

I auditioned in front of the producers. So I basically got to skip the open call. The producers liked me.

And I went home. And then they asked me to come back to New Orleans. And come in front of the celebrity judges.

Who were the judges there? It was the first year that it was like Katie, Lionel, and Lil. Oh, okay. So I went back down to New Orleans.

And got in front of them. And got my golden ticket. And then it was like, you're going to Hollywood.

And I was like, how does this work? And they were like, we'll let you know. So then that happened. Can I show this to the airplane company? The airline? I got a golden ticket.

What's crazy is they didn't let me keep my golden ticket. They take it back? I knew a couple people that got to keep theirs. But I didn't get to keep mine.

That's too bad. I just stole it. My point is, you took a risk.

Everybody I know that makes it in the music business has taken a risk. And I always explain to people. I said, it's not a risk that you would think risky hurts your body.