Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Coltt Lepley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Coltt, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
First off, I use my full name, my government name and my stage name, Coltt Winter Lepley. I’m from Bedford, Pennsylvania – North Appalachia. There are two t’s in my first name, everybody screws that up usually, hopefully one day when people have heard my stuff, it’ll be like Prince. Coltt – I think I’ll aim more for Gumby.
Now per your question:
One of my heroes, Townes Van Zandt, essentially says “You have to write everything off to be a songwriter.” Dale Earnhardt said the same thing about being a racecar driver, which I used to be as well. I imagine if you asked the best guy in the world at trimming Bonsai trees at the right moment, he’d probably say the same thing.
I think that probably applies to just about anything in life you really want to succeed at. I give up just about every single weekend of the year to work. That’s my work week, not to mention week days. Being a full-time musician is hard. Surely some reader out there working 199 hours overtime will say I’m soft for saying that. To them I say, I didn’t tell you to do what you’re doing. I decided to do what I’m doing, same as you, and I’m not out here selling insurance either. It’s hard. We’re all trying to pay bills. There’s really no vacations, relationships suffer and you miss important life events unless you schedule around them. Then you lose money. I think in a lot of ways, being a musician at a level short of being a famous millionaire is just like any blue collar job. I come from a family of small business and I see a lot of the pros and cons of working in a similar service career. It’s a lot of sacrifice and trade-offs. I think that’s reflected in the music. I’m not trying to sell hard-working people the stadium drum machine country music. I’m singing about the working class, my real life experiences, and characters with grit. Real blue-collar stuff. It’s as authentic as I know how to make it. I’ve about had it with hearing “country” songs from guys who have never had to Flex-Seal the bottom of their boots (mine are round toe, by the way).
But rather than have a 9-5 career with benefits and longevity, I gambled on myself and my art. I think that kind of faith is the last romantic thing anyone can do in this day and age – jump without a safety net. If I could give any advice, it’d be to be the riverboat gambler on the river of your own life. I sacrifice more than I’d like to admit. People don’t see the practice hours, the booking, the promo, the buying a bag of sunflower seeds to give yourself something to do on the drive home so you don’t fall asleep and you don’t smoke cigarettes anymore, so you have to chew the sunflower seeds. It’s all a lot. I think it’s worth it for some freedom and to be my own boss. It’s like any skilled labor position, in my opinion. I’m just a mason of words and fingerpicking instead of stone. In an over-simplified way, we’re both doing the same thing. I tell a lot of people I’m just a long-haul delivery driver that sells beer for a living.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I always loved storytelling and art. Folk/Americana music seemed to be the perfect marriage of those things. I think all I can do is help people to laugh or cry and feel something. Ideally I can make a person cry for one song, and laugh the very next one, or maybe even both in the same piece. I’m most proud of that and my poetry. If I can tell a compelling story and someone thinks about something for longer than three seconds or has a second thought about a subject, we’re doing more than most people have done lately. Our culture isn’t designed for much dwelling. It’s designed to make you read the next paragraph and be mad about the new thing and forget about that other thing you just read about. We live in a reactionary time, where instant, emotional decisions reign supreme. Stories, songs, characters, and good writing are supposed to be created by thinkers for thinkers. Toiling and dedicated thought are actually cool, good things.
I’ve played South By Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, TX, Americanafest in Nashville, TN. I’ve been over to Wyoming and up to New England and everywhere in between. I play in West Virginia a lot. I’ve played special folk stages like Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the now closed again Darlington House in Washington DC where Ramblin’ Jack and Dave Van Ronk did. I usually average nearly 200 shows a year, most of those are 2-3 hour shows. It takes a physical and mental toll, and because I run it all myself, I’m never really “off” work. People reach out when they want. I’m filling this thing out at 1:39am.
My brand of folk music is derived from traditional sources. I love “literary” storytelling and songs that mean something, songs that do something to help people.
For me, if there’s nothing thought provoking about a song, story, or character, there’s really no point. There are plenty of songs about drinking, but there are also really well written drinking songs. There are good and bad examples of every kind of song and every kind of anything. I always strive to be in the good column or I scrap the idea all together. I think that should be everybody’s goal all the time – to lead with the quality of their work and let their passion for it show through. Money should follow if you stay real. but again, if you’re doing this all for money, sell insurance. All I know is music is making my truck payment on time, knock on wood.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
This is a generic question. I probably give a generic answer. I genuinely do enjoy meeting people all over the country and then having those people come back out to get their life updates a year or so later. It makes me feel like I could couch surf just about anywhere in the lower 48. It’s also been cool to talk to people in other parts of the world who have enjoyed my music. I had an act cover one of my songs from the Netherlands. That’s pretty cool for a Pennsylvania boy who had only been out of the state a handful of times before he graduated high school.
I think now something that’s been rewarding is having people tell me they never considered something a certain way or I made them think of someone in a new light. Current world culture is so quick and tumultuous, anything I can do to slow it down and demand the attention of people for a few hours is really special. I think it’s an experience people haven’t been allowing themselves to have. When we slow down and really dedicate time to think about something, it makes us better people and better decision makers, hopefully with more empathy.
It’s also been rewarding to hear people tell me they genuinely enjoyed my writing. I come at music from a lyrical and storytelling perspective. I always admired how Woody Guthrie could tell a sad story, say like in “1913 Massacre” (where children get trampled to death in a panic caused by hawk copper boss thugs), in a major key rather than a minor key. The music behind the lyrics didn’t have to do any heavy lifting because it’s already authentically sad. Woody could do that.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I always wanted to play the Grand Ole’ Opry growing up and still do. I’d like to do it while my parents are still able to travel too. So, if any of you bonfire readers have an Opry connection, you can find me at colttwinterlepley.com. Clock it. I mostly just want to put out all the songs, poems, and novels I’ve written and hopefully that work lives on long after I do. It’s designed that way. If they ever caste a bronze statue, it wouldn’t take much money, space, or material, I’m only 5′ 4.” I’ve always been particularly conscious of the fact that our time here on Earth does eventually run out, and I’ve been motivated by that from a young age. I think another goal would be just being remembered for helping people and the songs I sang to be included in that good column I was talking about. Other than that, I’d like to keep funding life with art. I’m continually thankful it has so far. It has not been an easy row to hoe. Nothing worth doing ever is.
Every good opportunity I’ve ever had in career development, or anything really, has been because I gambled on myself. I took uncomfortable risks because that’s where you grow. Those experiences came from my pen and my guitar, and until AI automates us all, I’d like to be remembered as one of America’s last troubadours and weary pilgrims who did it on his own terms. Be a riverboat gambler, folks. Life is too short. And what’s it all matter anyway? We’re living through a real-life gameshow in the US every day. You might as well do the thing you’ve been sitting around waiting to do because the points obviously don’t matter unless you were born into a family that already had abundant points. So go take the points you deserve, and spin again!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.colttwinterlepley.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colttwinterlepley/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/colttwinterlepley/
- Linkedin: Linkedin is a website of micro-dosed self-help books and “look at me!” posts.
- Twitter: @CowboyColtt
- Youtube: Coltt Winter Lepley
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0qWRQCu07iZ2JEFLYAPxfw?uid=8da774257e06e44363ac&uri=spotify:track:77YwGzKKfo4smclA66pZfq
Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/coltt-winter-lepley/1795750958
Image Credits
Photographers (Thom Pietryka, Travis Beverly, Craig Toney, Charles McClanahan, Ethan Rose).