NYCS Swag Spotlight Featuring Joe Lasher

Joe Lasher, born and raised in Weaverville, North Carolina, is the definition of a small town boy who grew up around music and decided early on that it would be his career choice. His grandfather was in a southern gospel quartet for 55 years and his dad was in a 90’s rock band that toured around the North and South Carolina area. In a recent chat with New York Country Swag, Lasher explains how his father’s music influenced his sound as well as grunge bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Nirvana.

Throughout high school, Lasher had wanted to make football a career, being that he is 6’3 and always very into sports but he tells us “I think God decided I was supposed to play music when I broke my leg the first play of the second game in high school, so I had to set aside everything I loved to do and I think that is when I realized I can’t do anything I love right now with a broken leg. That’s when I picked up my guitar.”

Playing open mic nights when he was 15-16 years old, he fell in love with being on stage, despite his nerves.  “People would put money in the tip jar, and what was really cool, I came back the next week and all of the same people that were there came again but this time they brought their friends so it was at that point that I realized I enjoyed being up on the stage and playing music and seeing the people in front of me enjoying what I was doing,” he explains. “I was very quick to get addicted to that feeling.”

Mixing his rock and roll background with his traditional country upbringing he started playing the rodeo circuits throughout the region and practicing the craft of live shows.  He became friends with songwriter and producer Jeremy Stover who has worked with a ton of country artists including Justin Moore.  Stover encouraged Lasher to make the move to Nashville right out of high school and they worked together on a 5 song EP to get his feet wet in the industry.

Now at twenty-one years old, Lasher has released a new single “Nothing Better To Do Friday Nights” which was written by Stover and rising country artist Michael Ray. Although he isn’t a co-writer on the song, Lasher tells us that the first time he heard it, he knew that it was the perfect way to introduce himself to a new fanbase in Nashville.  “From where I am from, we lived that life “Nothing Better to Do Friday Nights”  that was our way. We had nothing to do, so we gathered up, there was a parking lot, like a shopping complex, we used to gather around with our trucks on Friday nights, it was where all of the small-town gossip came together, and sometimes, some of us, we got in trouble,” he laughs.