From the moment Brendan Walter popped up on the country music scene, we’ve been fans! Recently we chatted with Walter all about his journey to country music, his story so far, and of course, his upcoming debut project, Disappearing Days, out Friday (11/7).

The Dallas, Texas native grew up infatuated with music, but hockey was his first love. “A big part of my life was playing hockey, so I played that for about 20 years, and I just retired about two years ago from college,” shared the singer-songwriter. “I picked the guitar up about fifth grade, whenever the age where girls started being cool. I heard “Little Lion Man” from Mumford & Sons from my little brother’s friend, and I was like, “What is that?!” And I wanted to play that, so I started getting lessons, and I did that.”

While Walter would eventually discover country music by the way of Tyler Childers, he grew up on classic rock. “My first concert was Van Halen’s last tour, so that was the Mecca for me. I grew up like I’m sure a lot of guitarists now, playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and just learning all of those tunes, and then everything my dad’s playing on the CDs in the car was what I was listening to.”

Eventually, the singer would blend his influences, taking the folk-style from Mumford & Sons and fusing it with the country story-telling and rock elements from his youth.

The Turning Point:

Upon graduating high-school, Walter attended college at Lake Forest College to pursue finance and play college hockey, but soon enough, his path would illuminate differently than he originally saw it.

“When I got to college, I found some time to do some hobbies, and COVID hit the end of my freshman year, and I started picking up the guitar in a very real way, and I started writing again,” shared the singer “I started posting videos, and one thing led to another, I fortunately was able to meet some really cool people, and I moved out to Austin when I graduated, and I dropped my two majors of finance and computer science, and I said never mine, and I moved to Austin, Texas, grinded it out, played on the streets a whole bunch, and figured out how to play real shows.”

He recalls spending he summer of his junior year in Austin, Texas, forgoing a big summer internship in favor of music. “I had my last finance class is school, and I called my mom and said “I don’t think this is it right now.” So I literally just called my mom right after that class and said I think I don’t want to do this, and I think I want to move to Austin, and they’ve been completely supportive the whole way.”

Doors kept opening as Walter continued to hone in on his talent as an artist. I played on the street, did a bunch of open mics, and I was posting videos, and I had an audition for American Idol, which came out of the blue. I came to Nashville for that, and it didn’t work out, but I was just like okay, “I put my head down for two months and I got to be on TV” and I just kept going,” he shared, adding, “When I got back to school that year, I missed collegiate hockey games for that weekend, so that was a big turning point for me. I kind of started focusing on that and continued to try to grow a following or whatever. […] I didn’t know anything about anything, so I kept doing that, and right before I was about to graduate, a gentleman named Grady Smith reached out to me on Instagram, and he’s my best friend now in the whole world.”

Smith introduced him to a bunch of songwriters in Nashville, including Wyatt Flores and Evan Honer, the latter who would become his roommate when he moved to town. I moved to Nashville, when my lease ended. […] Grady [Smith] said let’s stop playing the singles game and let’s just do this, let’s make a real project and class yourself as an artist.”

Today:

Flash forward to today, Walter made the album he set out to make. “We did everything we possible could to make something really cool, and a year later, living in Nashville, looking back, I’m so proud of it. It’s not what everyone else is doing. It was a huge risk, but what’s not a risk at the end of the day, especially in music?! We made this project, and I continued to put a couple of songs out,” he shared. “The serendipity of me deciding to do all this stuff has been an amazing thing. The steps have been harder to find sometimes than others, but I’ve just been so for sure that this is the right thing to do, and that this is the right choice to make from the beginning.”

The finished record, Disappearing Days helped Walter land his record deal. “People started to hear that we had a whole album done that no one had to pay for, and we signed our first record deal maybe 4 or 5 months ago now in April, and I think we really found a great group of people to work with. […] It’s the people that you believe are going to try to help you and better your career, and it’s been an awesome experience.”

Disappearing Days features eleven songs that all speak to Walter’s story so far. “The idea behind the album is about growing up and maybe feeling a little bit behind. It’s all the ups and downs of being an adult for the first time. It’s a full spectrum. It’s falling in love, trying to pick up a girl, getting into fights, having family issues, and there’s a whole spectrum of things that I think we really touched on very nicely.”

Each and every song is an important component of the project; however, one of the stands out, “Pipe Dream” really speaks to the project as a whole. “And then “Pipe Dream” is the thesis of it. It’s exactly my story. It’s the most honest song I have on there. It’s literally, “I want to do this.” I bartended so I could pay bills, and I’m just going to do this until it works,” he shared. “It’s an opportunity in my head to kind of restart. I learned a lot of things through hockey, work ethic is the main one, but I”m not losing this one. In my head, you only lose if you quit, and if you work hard enough, you can literally do whatever you want. All of that said, I think that’s the message we’re trying to put across on the album.”

Connect:

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Brendan Walter’s music is available everywhere you buy or stream music. Take a listen below and check out more new recently released tunes on our ‘New Country Music’ playlist. Be sure to give the playlist a follow for your weekly new country music fix.