We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kurt Van Meter. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kurt below.

Kurt , appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I was a Police Officer for 15 years. In 2009 I was in a very bad shooting, where the bad guy shot at me from approximately 8 feet away. He had the drop on me. He was shooting a .50 caliber Desert Eagle hand gun. As I looked up I remember seeing the barrel, which looked like the size of a cannon, and the muzzle flash, indicating the weapon had been fired.

BY THE GRACE OF GOD, THE ROUND MISSED ME AND WENT OVER MY HEAD, LODGING ITSELF IN THE WALL OF CITY HALL.

During the month off we had after “neutralizing the suspect”, I started to play guitar. I had learned the G,C and D chords and there was something very therapeutic about strumming those chords repeatedly which helped my brain to relax. I figured since I was learning how to strum chords, why not put some words to them. There is an old Erich Church song, I can’t remember which one, where he talks about learning to put a story to chords so I figured “why not”?

When I came back to patrol I had to ride with another Officer to make sure I was ok to handle calls for service. My partner, Jeff Branson, had a girlfriend at the time who worked for 98.7 KUPL, “The Bull”. I told Jeff’s girlfriend, “I am going to start writing songs so I need to know who to talk to so they can play them”. As if it was that easy. I had almost died, so taking this risk didn’t feel that scary to me.

The Program Director at the time was a guy named Scott Mahalick. I called Scott and asked for a meeting. He agreed to meet me the next week. I sat down at a conference table and explained to Scott my situation. I told Scott, “If you believe in me, I could be the next Garth Brooks”. He didn’t laugh or say “You are an idiot”, he simply nodded his head up and down and said “ok”.

Scott asked, “Do you have any songs?” I said, “Nope”. He said, “Do you have a band?”. Again, Nope. “Do you have any concerts coming up?”. I said, “No sir, I am just starting this thing, and I want you to know if you believe in me I could make an impact”.” He simply said, “Ok”, stood up, shook my hand and we said our goodbyes.

I walked out of that meeting thinking “what in the hell am I doing?”. I also thought, “who is this guy?, is he really someone who can help me?”. Who knows.

During the next few months I started a jam session at a local bar called “Dukes”. I wanted to start a jam session so I could be around artists. This was a new world to me. I knew if I wanted to learn this world then I needed to be around the big dogs playing in the world. The jam session was every Tuesday. I started learning. I started understanding the crowd, how they really don’t care if you mess up. Just have fun and they will have fun.

About 9 months after I had started performing Chris Young was scheduled to perform at Dukes. I hounded the manager, Bruce Pulley, begging him to let me play with Chris. He finally relented and I was able to close the show after Chris played. It was my first big break.

A couple of months later Josh Thompson came to Dukes and I got to open for him. I had played some other small opening gigs for local bands, but Josh had a song on the charts at the time and it was a sold out crowd. I kept it simple. I surrounded myself with the best artists in town and did songs I knew the crowd would know and love.

About one year after my initial meeting with Scott Mahalick he called me into his office. By this time they had moved to a sky scraper in Downtown Portland. His office was on the 7th floor, in the corner. I walked into this office and there was signed records from Toby Kieth, Garth Brooks, Zach Brown. All of them saying, “To Scott”. I thought, “who is this guy”.

I sat down and started talking with Scott and eventually he said, “I want to help you however I can help you”. I was thinking, “why me?”. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to say that to Scott. At the time there were some very good bands in the Portland area, who I loved watching, and I didn’t understand why Scott would choose to support me and not them, but again, I sure as hell wasn’t going to say that out loud.

After my meeting with Scott I went home and searched the various venues in Portland to see who was coming to town. I saw David Alan Coe was coming to “The Roseland Theater” in Downtown Portland. I text Scott asking if I could open for Coe. Within 5 minutes Scott text me and said, “You are good to go”. I was shocked.

The next 3 years were amazing. I opened for Montgomery Gentry, Easton Corbin, Thomas Rhett, Craig Morgan and so many others. If I saw an act coming through I wanted to open for, I would call Scott, and more times than not I would get to open for them. I was shocked. I had been a fan of all of these artists for years and now all of a sudden I was opening for them. I took a risk to talk to Scott Mahalick and it has been one of the biggest blessings in my life.

In 2013, I left Law Enforcement to pursue music full time. I left a $90,000/year job to chase a dream. The next summer I performed with Montgomery Gentry, Eric Church and Blake Shelton. Eric Church heard my version of Bob Segar’s “Turn the Page” and added it to his Spotify channel. The song exploded and has sold over 4,000,000 streams and downloads in over 100 countries.

I have since been able to perform with Garth Brooks. I was in a choir during his show in Eugene, Oregon. I also got to spend 20 minutes with Garth and Miss Yearwood before one of their shows in Tacoma, Washington. I have performed for President Trump in south Florida and I also performed with much of the cast from the television series “Yellowstone”.

Cole Hauser, the actor who plays the character “Rip”, became a huge fan of my music. With Cole’s help, one of the songs of my new album, “Cowboy Grit”, was licensed by the PBR and used in their international ad campaign, of who I wrote the music for with my producer Gabriel Wilson. God Bless Cole Hauser. He is a good man.

God has blessed my music career mightily all because I decided to take one huge risk in 2013 and do what everybody was telling I should not do. I was laughed at. People rolled their eyes at me. People said bad things about me. But I had to focus and take a risk. Now, I make a living performing and writing music by the Grace of God.

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 did not grow up being a musician. I grew up in a small town in Southern Oregon called Klamath Falls. My Great, Great, Great, Great Grandparents homesteaded the South Poe Valley. In High School I lived in Eugene, Oregon and eventually played football and rode bulls for Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.

Out of college, I became a Deputy Sheriff for the Benton County Sheriff’s Office. I loved to sing, but everybody told me to stop singing. One patrol partner said, “Kurt, have I ever told you how much I love hearing you sing?”. I was shocked and said, “No bro, you havn’t”, to which he replied, “Then shut up”. It was hilarious and he did it out of brotherhood, but, I figured I sounded horrible when I sang, although, I felt like I could sing a little bit.

Fast forward 9 years and I was involved in a very bad shooting. After the shooting is when I started pursuing music.

I am most proud of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and actively trusting Jesus for his provision. In the music business, you don’t know what your next year looks like. You don’t know what shows are going to pop up and you pray you get enough to pay your bills. It is in the complete trust in Jesus for provision I have grown to be very thankful for. There have been times where I didn’t have much, but I have always had enough by The Grace of God.

Now I provide live entertainment for venues and corporations world wide. My music is streamed and downloaded in over 100 countries with between 1.5 million to 2.0 million streams and downloads a year. I lead a high energy 5 piece and sometimes 6 piece band. We pride ourselves on making the crowd the show, which some guy named Garth Brooks told me to do in my live performance.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I never thought I could write songs. First of all, I had no idea how to do it. Secondly, I never even thought I could do it. Song writing was always something other people did, a gift other people were given. Then I decided to try it. See what happens. Knowing full well whenever you start something you are going to suck at it.

So I sat down and thought about it. I figured why recreate the wheel, so I picked on of my favorite songs, “Hands to Yourself” by Georgia Satellites, and wrote my own lyrics to the melody I loved. I chose to write about an ex-girlfriend. A girl I had given up a lot for because I thought we were in love, only to have her cheat on my with your ex-husband and again with her eventual current husband. I decided to refer to her as “Gypsy”, and described our relationship as a “Road”. My song “Gypsy Road” was born and it is still one of my go to songs live and available on all digital platforms.

I kept writing. I kept being uncomfortable with the process. I fought threw the “why should I think I can write” mantra in my head and eventually was allowed to work with a world class Producer named “Gabriel Wilson”. Gabe took me to song writing school. He was honest enough to say, “Nope, thats not good enough, try again”. It was tough, but Gabe taught me the art of writing music.

I refuse to quit. God willing, I will never stop performing. Here is the thing, you have to bust your ass every day. You have to work at it EVERY DAY. You can’t get frustrated nobody is calling you and you can’t worry about bugging people who can help you propel your career forward. It is called “Hustle Muscle”. You just have to grind every day. Pray your ass off, work your ass off and see what happens.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

First and foremost is to honor God with the gift he has given me. Secondly, it is to show my kids you can become whatever you want to become with hard work and dedication.

Objectively, I want to open for Garth Brooks. I also pray I get to play the Grand Ol’ Opry or the Ryman someday. I want to be able to just play music and have that be enough to play my bills and take my children on vacation. I was blessed to be able to do music full time for 3 years. I pray some day I get to keep it that way forever.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kurtvanmeter.com
• Instagram: thekurtvanmeter
• Facebook: Kurt Van Meter
• Twitter: Kurt Van Meter
• Youtube: Kurt Van Meter