Who is Brandon Ratcliff? The singer-songwriter joined us to chat about his journey to country music. Get to know the rising star here…

The Beginning:

Our very first Swag Spotlight of 2019 is also one of our Artists to Watch this year, Brandon Ratcliff. As a young man, grew up surrounded by the music industry as the son of Suzanne Cox of the legendary band, The Cox Family. His hometown, Cotton Valley, Louisiana proved to be the perfect small town to grow up.  “One of the big cornerstones of my childhood was my mom teaching me to be a true fan of great music in the car rides on the way to school, her being the DJ, she showed me and my younger brother so much great music everything from Merle Haggard to Ricky Skaggs, Stevie Wonder, Hall and Oates and Fleetwood Mac, I had a love for music, art, and songwriting from a young age,” he tells us in a recent interview. Although his very first dream was to be a professional basketball player, after discovering artists and songwriters like John Mayer and Eric Church struck a chord for him and he decided to pursue songwriting himself.

The Turning Point:

In 2014 he moved to Nashville and focused on honing his songwriting craft. “I was really focused on writing songs and because that was to me, my favorite part about it, I was a song person, I always wanted to write great music,” Ratcliff explains. He tells us that he found his tribe of songwriters and after meeting Pete Good and AJ Babcock it just clicked. “Once you meet your team, it really is the most empowering feeling when you are doing what you love with that group of guys.”

Back in October, Ratcliff released his debut single “Rules of Breaking Up” which already has garnered over a million streams on Spotify.  When discussing the writing process he tells us it was born out of a conversation with A.J Babcock, busbee, and Pete Good.  “We all know the rules when you break up but the lyrics were specifically about the one relationship that makes you want to break all of those rules,” he says. An interesting anecdote is Ratcliff doesn’t think of the song as a breakup song but instead, one for someone you deeply care about. “It was a little bit of a love song, it was born out of a place of almost writing what it would be like to lose someone that important, it was more of an introspective,” he explains. “You love someone so much, if I broke up with you, I wouldn’t be able to follow those rules.”  The beauty of songwriting and something that he loves about the process is the way that people can interpret songs differently.

Today:

To close out 2018, Ratcliff announced that he would be opening on the Miss Me More Tour with Brett Young and Kelsea Ballerini. The two artists will bring their diverse fan base to the nationwide tour and the rising artist is so humbled and excited to get to play his music for them. Looking forward into the new year besides the tour, he is can’t wait to release the music he has been writing and recording for the past two years. For tour dates and more info head to https://www.brandonratcliff.com/ and be sure to be following Brandon Ratcliff on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.