BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Canaan Smith Found Himself And His ‘High Country Sound’ After Leaving Major Label Deal

Following
This article is more than 2 years old.

Canaan Smith has lived a lot of life since the release of his 2015 debut album Bronco. The singer, who left his major label deal with Mercury Records Nashville in 2018, releases his sophomore album, High Country Sound, today via Florida Georgia Line’s Round Here Records and AWAL, Kobalt’s label services division.

The decision to leave Mercury came from Smith feeling “lost in the mix.” While he saw radio success with “Love You Like That,” which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart July 2015, the singer admits that he lost his vision as an artist along the way.

“Sometimes it takes friends that are close to you to know that that's what's going on and help see you through it and get you back on track,” Smith tells me.

MORE FROM FORBESFlorida Georgia Line Finds New Publishing Home With Their Own Tree Vibez Music: 'It's A Dream Come True'

Those friends were Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard. The duo signed Smith to their publishing company Tree Vibez Music in May 2018, several months after Smith departed his label. He signed with the duo’s Round Here Records the following year, becoming the label’s flagship artist.

“It is different than being with a big label,” Smith says of signing with his two friends. “I came from a really, really great label — one of the most powerful and successful labels — and a building full of people I love and felt loved by, but I don't thrive well in certain team formations and I just needed to switch up the formation a little bit.”

Smith says he wanted to be surrounded by a smaller group of strong believers and with Kelley and Hubbard he succeeded. “We believe in each other and I think that's everything,” he adds. “We all are friends who want each other to win.”

MORE FROM FORBESMiko Marks Returns After 13 Years With New Album 'Our Country'

The singer, who moved from Virginia to Nashville in 2005, refers to High Country Sound as his true starting point. “I honestly just wrote and recorded this for me. I had to,” he says. “I moved here to do what I’m doing now, and we are just getting started.”

This newfound confidence is heard within High Country Sound. Smith co-wrote each of the 12 tracks on High Country Sound as well as produced most of the songs. The project blends his Virginia roots with many influences including country and bluegrass. He says there was no pressure this time around and no focus on radio airplay. As a result, much of his life over the past six years is reflected within each song on the project.

“I've evolved the most as a human with the experience that comes in six years of being on the road, having radio success, not having radio success, getting married, having a baby, walking away from a deal, signing a new one, feeling lost, feeling found,” he says. “It's affected everything from my songwriting to the sound of the album.”

One of the first tracks Smith produced for the album is “Mason Jars & Fireflies,” a backwoods barn burner highlighting Smith’s vivid storytelling alongside a steady beat and memorable banjo accompaniment. Smith says the song helped steer the direction of the album and its accompanying music, which he describes as Virginia country.

“It was just a digging deep and reaching inside kind of thing to find that sound that best reflects me and not just a sound that we think is cool or is going to work or going to compete,” the Virginia native says. “I had 100% complete freedom from start to finish.”

Smith’s authenticity runs throughout the album on songs like the cinematic “American Dream,” written 10 years ago, and the heartfelt “Sweet Virginia,” which has taken on new meaning since the birth of his daughter, Virginia, last year.

MORE FROM FORBESMeet Suzie Brown: A Cardiologist And Songwriter Processing Covid-19 Through Music

On “American Dream” Smith sings, “Summer lightning strike, blows out all the lights/ Slows us down, reminds us just how far we’ve come.” A timely message for the past year, Smith credits the song as evidence for God’s timing.

Smith recorded the album throughout 2020 and early 2021 when Nashville studios slowly lifted restrictions and reopened their doors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Smith recorded at Southern Ground Nashville and Sound Emporium Studios with social distancing and mask requirements in place at each studio. He also spent much of the time in his garage recording his vocals while facing a padded wall and underneath a blanket to isolate his sound.

“Everybody should feel comfortable in themselves more than anywhere else at home, so it was a really nice space to do that, to approach from a place that felt more grounded,” he says.

One of those home vocal recordings is album highlight “Catch Me If You Can,” a fast-paced track about living on the edge featuring Brent Cobb. Smith asked Cobb to sing on the song late into the album process and shortly before the deadline for turning in his masters. The pair made it work as a snowstorm hit Nashville. As Smith recalls, Cobb was on his way to town for his own project when the roads were getting slick. Smith set up his garage studio for Cobb to put down three passes of his verse before he left.

“I said, ‘Man be careful on your way back,’ and he said, ‘Neither the law nor the devil will stop me.’ I just love that full circle story,” Smith says. “He was taking a lyric from the song but also living up to that same can’t stop me spirit that that song had. I thank God that it worked out the way it did. I think it was meant to be.”

Smith likens creating High Country Sound to making music in his college days at Belmont University with Kelley and Hubbard. He says the process empowered him as a creative and he wouldn’t change anything about his journey to his sophomore album.

MORE FROM FORBESCanaan Smith: An Interview With One Of 2015's Breakout Stars

“We're just thankful to be alive, thankful to be doing it and it's coming from a place of a true love for music again,” he says of High Country Sound. “The amount of songs and opportunities and chances we’re going to get to share something with people through music — which is my favorite thing in the world — I'm not guaranteed how many times that's going to happen.

“I want to care less about being cool and more about being me and less about being unique or original and more about being myself, which ironically makes you a more unique individual in the long run,” he adds. “Part of that is not running from your past and embracing it. Not trying to disassociate yourself with any of it but channeling it to make it your story.”

On High Country Sound, that’s exactly what Smith did.

Follow me on Twitter