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

Rob, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

As a indie country music recording artist, each song I write, record and perform brings a new found excitement, momentum, more fans and more industry connections. Nothing could be more true than my current single release ‘Sounds Like A Memory’. With my last 4 singles charting on the Music Row Country Breakout Chart and 5 songs going to #1 on the Canadian Indie Country Countdown the culmination lead to making the connection and signing a single release with music publisher For The Record based out of Nashville, TN. The company was founded by country artist and songwriter Aaron Goodvin and his wife Victoria who has worked in the music publishing business for many years.
This new venture, geared at helping country artists like myself, take the steps to the next level of their music career, paired me with some of the best songwriters in the industry as well as a catalog of songs to select from. From the entire creative process many great new songs were written and one song was selected. Sounds Like A Memory was to become my next big single release.

Written by hit songwriters Aaron Goodvin, Skip Black and Phil Barton, ‘Sounds Like A Memory’ was pitched to prominent producers and one jumped on to the project. Producer by Eric Torres, known for his work with Jimmie Allen, Lee Brice and Jamey Johnson was going to produce my next song. The song was recorded at Farmland Studios in Nashville TN and features a six piece ‘A’ list band laying down incredible performances bringing the track to life creating as song custom tailored to my vocal style. The song adds traditional country elements as well as modern, contemporary vibes mixed with a hint of soul giving this love song the visual narrative that Sounds Like A Memory.

Players featured on the track
– Artist & Lead Vocal: Rob Fitzgerald (4 songs charted on Music Row Country Chart)
– Fiddle: Jenee Fleenor (George Strait, Jon Pardi, Blake Shelton, Cody Johnson, Carly Pearce, Sam Hunt, Martina McBride & more)
– Electric Guitar: Justin Ostrander (Cody Johnson, Chris Jansen, Toby Keith, Riley Green, Sam Hunt, Luke Bryan & more)
– Pedal Steel: Andy Ellison (Jon Pardi, Kameron Marlowe, Dylan Marlowe, Spencer Crandall)
– Drums: Kip Allen (Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Devin Dawson)
– Bass: Nathan Gehri (John Hiatt)
– Acoustic Guitar & Mandolin: Connor Fiehler (Chase Mathew)
– BGV: Eric Torres

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Rob Fitzgerald I’m a indie country recording artist and songwriter. Things didn’t really start out that way at first All I ever wanted to do was to was just be a songwriter as a side job/hobby. From some publishing pitches I had in Nashville a few of them asked if that was me singing on the demos as I said “yes”. They said “have you thought about becoming an artist yourself”. After consulting with a few industry people that I know for advice they all said “go for it”. So I went through the process of coming up with a brand, promo photos, professional recordings and ultimately having my first single go to country radio with great response. An indie country artist was born.
I geared myself up for the task of learning all I could about the music business, how to promote myself in the best way possible and see how much I could do for myself on a limited indie budget. As an indie artist it’s important to be able to wear many different hats on any given day depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. Effective self promotion is key to the success of people discovering me and my music. Patience is at times difficult as you have to start off slow and continue building relationships with each release. It’s not like the movie “if you build it they will come”. Slow & steady wins the race. At the same time working on bettering the craft of songwriting I made a connection with a songwriting mentor, Warren Sellers based in Southern California, that I have been with for years now guiding me in making me a better songwriter to compete in a very talented market. With better songs, better recordings, more radio play, more streaming numbers brings more people that are interested that want to be in my corner. Like a great bunch of musicians that want to join the live performances that build on a polished show making the brand even more solid to well known producers wanting to produce my music, radio promoters in both the US and Canada, booking agents. More just brings more.
Now with 4 songs reaching the US Music Row Country Breakout chart and 5 number 1 songs on the Canadian Indie Country Countdown chart this indie country artist is looking to launch my music to the next level with my new single ‘Sounds Like A Memory’ releasing April 25 everywhere. This time I will be aiming to partner with a management company that believes in the brand and the music launching the project to a greater audience, higher profile live shows and events and open the doors to parts of the music industry that is difficult for and indie artist to achieve alone bringing the culmination of planning and hard work to a sustainable career in this competitive music industry.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Building an audience on social media takes time, planning and knowing what works best to trigger algorithms an interest of the people to draw them to your brand and music. It’s also important to study how social media works, how the algorithms work to best get your product in front of the right people that you would like to have follow you. There are many great tools in each social media platform that help you achieve these goals. This is also the side of the many different hats you’ll have to wear in order to self promote. You have lots of money you can always have people do it for you but if your budget is limited you’ll have to figure out how to do this on your own. Some of it will be trial and error. Figure out what works best for you and in what keeps the brand real. Going to seminars and online courses on best practices for your social media brand will be key because you can never really figure it out yourself when just trying to do your own research. Doing your own research is a must but getting the input of professionals and experts will help solidify the right path to better promotion.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

What drives my passion as a country artist is my love for country music, writing in the genre, performing live and connecting with people. There is also a deeper therapy that satisfies the soul of being able bring a concept of a song to it’s completion to the finished produced and recorded product and release it to the world for people to listen to and enjoy and give that feedback on how my music has moved them only fuels the passion to continue.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://robfitzgeraldmusic.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/robfitzgeraldmusic
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/robfitzgeraldmusic
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@robfitzgeraldmusic
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@robfitzgeraldmusic