About
Dylan Scott
An old soul with a young spirit … a dreamer who imagined
himself following his father's path to Nashville … a man's man with a lifelong
love for hunting and country music … and a heartthrob whose wide smile and
deep-voiced Louisiana drawl have already turned many a woman's head.
Even in the tide of hopeful young singers rising daily in Music City, Dylan
Scott stands out. It takes just a few seconds to hear why: after Scott's vocal
begins on "Crazy Over Me," intimate, even conversational, and then
soars on a rush of buoyant emotion, you know something special is underway.
Not just this song, mind you -- we're talking about a career. Dylan Scott's
respect for traditional country, embrace of multiple modern genres, unique
voice and welcoming personality guarantee his success in country music for
years to come.
Scott's vocal on his No. 1 single "My Girl" spans a vast range of expressions, from the intensity of the choruses to the spoken-word interlude,
and plays out a true story that Dylan remarks was “ten years in the making”.
The song, written about Dylan’s girlfriend at the time, and now wife, has
already garnered the attraction of legions of female fans. Millions of them, in
fact. Dylan’s attention to the digital space
has created unusually large crowds at his live performances with fans singing
practically every word to every one of his songs all across the US and Canada.
As one of the most successful, recent developing artists stories, Dylan Scott
has and is riding a wave of momentum into the release of the deluxe version of
his self-titled debut. Having been named one of Spotify’s Spotlight on Country
Artists, along with AT&T giving him the tremendous nod of adding him to
their short-list of “About To Break” artists, fans have already consumed
millions of plays on new music through his engagement across social media and
streaming. Following the success of his debut single, “Makin’ This Boy Go
Crazy”, “Crazy Over Me” debuted at #14 on the Billboard Sales Chart, “My Girl” has
run away as a career-changing song for Dylan, and new single “Hooked” is sure
to be the next.
Everything that defines Dylan Scott lies in rural northeastern Louisiana, about
15 minutes from Bastrop, the nearest small town. "Growing up in the
country is part of my music," he says. "There were woods near our
house. I grew up duck hunting and deer hunting. I went fishing and I played
ball. That's just what we did and who we were."
What made Scott different was that his father was often out of town and on the
road, playing guitar behind Freddy Fender, Freddie Hart, and other country
stars. Young Dylan listened attentively to stories of Dad's adventures on the
road and in Nashville, which took shape in his imagination as a kind of Emerald
City beyond the horizon.
"From as far back as I can remember, I wanted to go there," Scott
says. "Even in elementary school, that's all I thought about. I never
thought, 'Gee, I'd like to be a police officer' or whatever. There was always
this understanding that someday, somehow, I would go to Nashville."
He first saw Music City when he was about 15 years old. "My dad brought me
up here with one of his buddies," he recalls. "We looked at Music Row
and the Ryman. My dad showed me an alleyway where he had to sleep in his truck
one night. He introduced me to the guy who became my manager and still is. It
was really fascinating and intimidating at the same time."
Just before turning 19, Scott accepted a contract from Curb Records and began
recording. From the start, his most important mentor was and continues to be
Jim Ed Norman, the distinguished producer, record label executive and current
Chief Creative Advisor for Curb. "You name it, Jim Ed has done it,"
Scott insists. "When you're making records, it's about creativity and how
you feel and how much fun you're having. And along with his background, he
brings a lot of fun to it because he loves making records, and I love making
records with him."
As they worked on various studio projects, Scott returned to his initial
passion for performance. He put together an unusual "band of
brothers," consisting of his brother Logan on lead guitar and two other
siblings, Garrett and Darrick Cline, on bass and drums, respectively. The
communication they share is at least as important as their rock-solid
musicianship. In fact, Scott invited Garrett to join the group before he'd
heard him play or even met him in person.
"I checked him out on Facebook but I never saw him play on a video or in
person," Scott says. "But I called him on the phone and I just liked
his attitude and the way he talked so much that I told him, 'I want you in my
band!' I mentioned then that I needed a drummer and Garrett told me about his
brother, so I hired him too! And they're both phenomenal. I don't know how I
got so lucky."
These were the guys that went into the studio to record Scott's upcoming album.
Norman was again in the production chair, but for the first time a second chair
was pulled up next to his. "I've got my roommate, Matt Alderman, producing
with Jim Ed," Scott says. "Where Jim Ed has this great experience,
Matt has this fire inside of him. It was a great dynamic. Everyone worked
really well together."
Another detail distinguishes Scott's debut album from most new releases coming
out of Nashville. Despite -- actually, because of -- his band's unity as
players and friends, they decided to layer parts individually over the basic
tracks, with Norman, Alderman and Scott then putting it all together like
perfectly matched puzzle pieces. This is something of a throwback approach,
with so many artists now recording all their backup parts live. But for Scott,
it made total sense to explore this path.
"We started with Garrett and Darrick," he says. "Then my little
brother Logan came in and recorded his parts. We brought in a couple of studio
guys who are really, really good, to spike it up a little after that. But it
all worked. I'd always heard stories, growing up, about how it was to make
records back in the old days. They'd stay up sometimes to 1 AM, hanging out
with their buddies and adding to the music. Now we're doing it -- and it's
awesome.”
"It's the most creative way to make a record that doesn't sound like
everyone else's music," he elaborates. "It's like building a house.
You can get a bunch of people together and throw it up at one time. Or you can
have a small group craft every detail exactly how you want it."
"We throw a lot of elements into these songs, just like we do in our
show," he explains. "Our show is very diverse: we come out rockin',
then we might do some really old-school country stuff and then some hip-hop or
something that's cool on the radio now. One of the biggest compliments I can
think of is when people come up to me after the show and go, 'Man, I'm not
really a country music fan, but that was awesome! I even liked the country stuff you did'."
Scott laughs, with a honeyed hint of the Louisiana backwoods. "It would be
nice to have a No. 1 come out of this," he concedes. "But I'd love to
make some noise and build the fan base level by level, just like we made this
album. I don't want to take two steps forward and one step back. I just want to
climb, one step at a time."
*Update: As of July 2017, Dylan achieved that No. 1 goal, as “My Girl” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay Chart. The song has also been certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of 500,000.
Dylan Scott's next big step is just around the corner. Stand by … there's much more to come.