HP Welcome to the UK,
CS Than you so much it is my first time
HP I was just about to ask if you have been here before?
CS Nope, very first time. All I have gotten to see so far is through car windows, but it is beautiful, I am excited to be here!
HP I started to do some research on you and I found it quite difficult until I went to my website, Country Lowdown, I have been posting about you since June 2022!
CS Someone has to! Appreciate it!
HP Were you surprised to be asked to come over?
CS You know what, we were honoured, with everything that has been going on, putting out the album (Smoky Mountains) and Creek Will Rise (latest single) having so much success in the UK it is a really cool thing. We were really honoured that C2C asked us, the whole UK team over here has done well. My first time in Europe so the last four days, landed in Germany on … what’s today?
HP Wednesday
CS OK … So Sunday was Germany, Monday was Sweden, Tuesday was Norway and now we are here!
HP No wonder you are losing track!
CS I have just had lunch so it is all good!
HP Were you aware of C2C before being asked to perform?
CS Nashville is such a small town, such a community aspect so I have heard of C2C over the last few years and I have had so many friends come over here. They have all said the same thing, how incredible the experience is, how incredible the fans are, just a whole different culture of the fan base. So I was excited to experience it for myself and see if it lives up to what they have all said.
HP You first went to the Grand Old Opry at age 6 – who took you?
CS My parents took me. We moved to Nashville when I was 5 or 6, so when we got here my parents were well, we had better take him to the Grand Ole Opry, my mum especially, my dad is an ‘80s pop guy, my mum is the Country fan. We grew up cleaning the house Sunday morning to the Judds, Montgomery Gentry, all the legends.
HP Your mum works in the Country music business, doesn’t she?
CS She is a TV reporter. Dad would bounce around and work in different hospitals. So every place we moved to she would get a job at the local news station. When we moved to Nashville, as she loved Country music she raised her hand for all those jobs, that gave he a view into the industry without being fully immersed in it. Now she has this podcast (Got It From My Momma) about interviewing entertainers mums. It has been fun to see that grow.
HP You went to the Opry at the age of 6 and you started Song Writing immediately afterwards.
CS Yeah, that night.
HP That is how driven you were.
CS Yeah that’s right. Hal Ketchum performed that night, he sang his song ‘Sure Love’ I remember being so captivated. I went home and picked up a guitar, I didn’t know how to play yet, I rewrote the lyrics. I came down and played it to my mum, I remember the look she gave me, how proud she was. There was something in it that had lit a fire in me. Prior to that though, even in Kindergarten, my report cards always said ‘Connor sits there making up songs in his head’. When we got to Nashville I realised that it was a job that you could cultivate and I just realised I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.
HP Do you still have any of those songs from when you were 6 and do you ever look at them?
CS I let those songs stay there. I signed to BMI when I was 9 years old Clay Bradley had asked me to sign there as he had heard some songs I had written. It wasn’t that these songs were good by any means, but I knew what I was doing and there was structure to them, there were verses, choruses and the bridge. He saw this and valued it. As a 9 year old kid that was such an encouragement, I was a 3rd grader and a professional songwriter!
HP Football played a big part of your life too didn’t it? Was it hard to choose between that or Songwriting?
CS It was baseball (oops, my bad!!) Yeah, baseball was the sport for me, my mum was Country music, my dad was baseball, so they were the two big passions in my life, well baseball was my first love, music was my first passion. The difference was I loved baseball, I loved the games, I loved the playing but I never liked the practise! I LOVE practising writing songs! I love the whole thing, that was the big difference.
HP My next question was could you play an instrument when you started writing songs, you have said you couldn’t, so you were learning to play guitar and learning to write songs?
CS I am still learning to play the guitar! I can impress someone who doesn’t play the guitar but when I get around really good guitar players, even Jackson Dean today, and I watch those guys play I am like Man I need to get better at this! Every time I sit down to try and master the guitar though I just end up writing songs again!
HP At your first performance at the Grand Ole Opry you sang ‘Jesus & Me’ which you wrote for your Great Grandparents, has it been recorded?
CS No, not yet.
HP Any plans to record it? I saw something that you have left it in the hands of the Lord for him to tell you when you are ready.
CS I don’t remember saying that, but it is a great quote for me and I still agree with that! I wrote the song when I was 14 and I felt the shift, I felt that was heads above what I have ever written before. It felt like a new chapter! I played it to my parents after I had written it. My Great Grandparents were married at the age of 15.
HP Babies!
CS Yeah for sure! This was the 1930’s! When I played the song to my parents, first thing my mum said was “You are going to play that song in the Grand Old Opry one day!” When I got asked to play at the Opry, I told mum I was going to sing ‘I Hate Alabama’. She said “You cannot play I Hate Alabama”! I never told her I was going to play ‘Jesus And Me’. My Great Grandparents loved going to the Opry, they would drive 3 & ½ hours to go. That afternoon, with tears in his eyes, my dad gave me my Great Grandad’s pocket knife, he said he wanted me to have it in my pocket that night, without knowing I planned to sing that song! That night when I played ‘Jesus And Me’, there was not a dry eye in the room, it was really special!
HP I am not sure if you have thought of this or not, but it would make a fabulous wedding song!
CS I have thought of that and also a Mother/Son dance with my mum, so we will see. I am getting married in six weeks so there is still time …
HP Funny that, I got married last week!
We then had a conversation about how long we had been together and why we had decided to get married now, which I won’t bore you with but was fun!
HP You landed a publishing deal at 16, seems 6 is a significant number for you!
CS They say Nashville is a 10 year town
HP Ohh, what is going to happen at 26? Two years time!
CS Oh oh!!
At that point we got cut short! To which Conner said “But we were having such a good time!” I had a few more questions to ask, but next time!
Keep in touch with Connor at www.connersmithmusic.com