My Story
"Before my viral claim to fame from Vine, I was born in Southwest Virginia and was raised in a tiny town called "Dot." Dot is not even available on Google maps and I hope it stays that way. Throughout high-school and college, I worked for my Grandfathers three-man logging crew, I ran "the yard." "The yard" consisted of removing the limbs from trees and cutting up all the trees brought from the mountains to fit the market. Not only was I cutting limbs off of trees, but I almost took a limb off myself! More on that in a bit. I didn't want to be a lumberjack my whole life, but, I also didn't want to leave my hometown for work. Living an hour from real civilization requires you to leave if you want a decent paying job. The only nearby work was the prisons. So I went to community college on an AIMS scholarship and graduated with an Associate’s Degree in Police Science and an Associate’s Degree in Corrections.
Shortly after graduating I got a job at Wallens Ridge State Prison, which was one of two Super Maximum Prisons within our state. Here I was, 21 years old and perfectly content with my 30 thousand dollars a year job, still living with my momma. After being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time within my 1 year of training as an officer, I was terminated from the prison for being in a "Non-Alert Position." Basically this Sgt. tried to say I was asleep on the job.
Anyways... my 2 degrees became worthless because not one prison would hire me with a termination on my record from a Supermax Prison, so I went back to logging to keep a steady income. Confused at 21 years old as to what I was going to do with my life, I spent a lot of time keeping myself sane & entertained on my cell-phone. Sometimes my log crew would be 30 minutes into the holler, so I would have 30 minutes of time to kill if I could keep up with their work flow.
After a stressful day of work, I got into a hurry & cut my leg with my chainsaw. About thirty minutes of a wait for the boys in the holler to doze back to me, 30 minutes drive to the nearest hospital and 100 plus stitches later, I woke up and still had a leg and a 6-week vacation! This is when life took an interesting turn. I posted a video of me singing a Luke Bryan song before going to bed & before I knew it, I had 30,000 people following me. I quit my job & started diving into music full-time. I knew there was something special to what I had going on when I had a record deal offered to me before I had even released any music! I started learning to write, learn the industry and how to make music. When I finally figured out it was only gonna cost me $9.99 to release my music to all these people becoming my fans, I released my first song "Steal My Kiss.”
The song hit #4 on The Country Charts within 24 hours of its release! It totally blew my mind. I made enough money to buy my dads truck, fix it and move to Nashville! I have now released a few more songs and I am on my way to releasing a lot more as an Independent Artist! I literally work for the people who enjoy me as a person and an artist. Life has turned out way different from what I could have ever imagined and I am very grateful. Thank you to My Fans, because of you life is wonderful!"