We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Connor Christian a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Connor, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I’m currently finishing up what’s turned into one of the most meaningful projects of my artistic life. While the band and I were creating our last full LP, New Hometown, it was a very organic and collaborative process. Though I’d written most of the songs myself, we’d road tested them, gotten in front of hundreds of audiences and honed each little part to just where we wanted them. Ten years on, things have changed – the band members have drifted to the corners of the earth. I’m still writing and singing the songs, but I don’t have the luxury of taking them on the road anymore. I’m lucky to have met more extremely talented musicians that have helped me FINALLY bring this follow-up record to life, a decade after we expected to be doing it. I’ve spent the last 24 months working on this album, trying out different parts, taking it back to the lab, and really trying to make “One More For The Road” the follow-up record that “New Hometown” deserved. That record meant so much to so many people, myself maybe more than anyone, and it means the world to me that I’m following that up in way that I’m proud of, even so many years later, and especially because of all the extra time and care that went into it

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name, is Connor Christian. I started playing music professionally at about 16 years old, and full time by about 20. In 2004 I started a band that would eventually become known as Connor Christian & Southern Gothic, or CCSG for short. Between 2007 when the band really took the form that it would take to success, through 2015 the band played over 1650 shows (not counting the solo shows and tours I did). In 2012 we got picked up by Rocket Science Records and they released 2 of our albums as one giant, 20-song piece called “New Hometown” in February of 2013. To everyone’s surprise, the album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Heat Seeker Chart (New Artist), and #17 on Billboard’s Country Chart, buoyed by a strong performance of the video for our lead single, “Sheets Down”, on the CMT Video Countdown. Despite these things working in our favor, our music, it turns out, was just not country enough for the hard-core country types, and a little too country for the rock fans. At least that’s what the geniuses in the suits told us.
While we toured on, played hundreds more shows to tens of thousands of people, we were never really able to get the chance to re-create that magic that we made on New Hometown, couldn’t get the record company funding. Finally I was able to do it on my own

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I hope that one day the US, and for that matter more of the world, embraces a system more like Canada’s for supporting the arts. It’s amazing that once you demonstrate your ability to connect with a small audience they support you in your endeavours to connect with ever larger ones. It’s supportive, merit-based to a degree, and offers a real possibility of a career path, AND a soft-landing while finding out if you’re cut out for that life and whether, frankly, you have what it takes to go far.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

In the years since our big success, we’ve had a million road blocks. Also in that time I’ve started a chain of bookkeeping firms in my hometown that’s starting to do well, and take up a good bit of my time. Music/entertainment, as a business, is 95% rejection, and that’s if you’re one of the luckiest and most talented 1-2% of the people trying to ‘make it’. My life is going well, the path back to any sort of real relevance in the music industry is near impossible, so why not just let it go and move on to easier and more self-esteem-friendly waters? Because I can’t. Really, I’ve tried. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, “alright, this is it for me, the is the last song I’m putting out and I’m going to put it away”. Then that song gets some nice reviews, doesn’t chart or anything, but it’s getting streamed. I play a couple of shows. There’s a really good one in there. I’m hooked again. Rinse and repeat.
If you’ve never known the rush, the exhalation, of hearing a room full of people sing your song back to you, you’ll just never understand. To rip a little piece of you out, show it to others, and have them respond in an affirming way, that’s everything. THAT’S the drug

Contact Info:

• Website: TheSouthernGothicMusic.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/TheSouthernGothic
• Facebook: Facebook.com/TheSouthernGothic
• Twitter: @ConnorChristian
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ConnorChristianVEM

Image Credits
The pics from the big ATL show are Mil Cannon The band pic (just the 2 of us) is Barbara Potter