We recently connected with Tommy Habib and have shared our conversation below.

Tommy , appreciate you joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

I’m an only child, and when I was super young my parents worked different shifts on the weekends. My mother was working midnights and sleeping during the day, so my dad would take me out to breakfast, hang with me and visit with my grandma so that my mom could catch some well-needed rest. I can remember like it was yesterday at the age of 3 driving with my dad to Bob Evan’s when he grabbed a CD and said “I want you to hear something, I think you’ll like it,” he popped in “Two of Us” by the Beatles. I can honestly say at that moment I knew what I wanted to do the rest of my life–I wanted to do what THEY were doing: play, write, record and listen to music. (Lest this seem to far-fetched, I confirmed the accuracy of this story with my dad before he passed away). From that moment on, their mission was to make my dream come true. I started going to concerts at the age of 3 too, first Elton John then Alanis Morrissette (of course I barely knew what half of her salacious words meant), my parents were building a CD collection and I rapidly helped making mix tapes. My mom took me to piano lessons and, thinking that I was perhaps a little afraid of the process, decided to take lessons herself. I liken it to an athlete’s parents taking them to games, training, meeting important players…except you so rarely see it happen in the creative field. Perhaps their greatest gift was letting me have a safe haven: a basement studio where I could escape any worries, any school problems, social anxieties or teenage hangups about my appearance and simply DREAM at the piano. It’s there I learned my craft–the fabled 10,000 hours of analyzing songs, figuring out the process of writing my own, discovering my voice, letting out all of my love and pain I was to afraid to express. My mom is still the first person to whom I play a song hot off the press and I dedicate everything I do to my dad’s memory.

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 describe myself as a singer/songwriter and musician. However, I think the best answer is that I am a communicator. I write or co-write songs, record them playing a majority of the instruments, and then play them live. I love being a record producer as much as I love being a performer. All of this, though, is for the same purpose: to convey emotion and connect with my listeners directly. The feedback I get from listeners most often is that I write very catchy, accessible melodies. I’m proud to get a place in your memory, once I’m there I want to say something significant. There are millions of songwriters writing millions of songs here: what sets me apart is I don’t see myself as the performer and my listeners as the audience. Truly, we are one in the same and I’m here to communicate what I’m feeling, what you’re feeling, what we’re all going through and to say something NEW. I don’t think we need another song about whiskey for a few more years…

People always tell me how much “energy” I have on stage—truly something I never realized until I started hearing it repeatedly. I think the simple answer is it’d be very difficult to NOT have a good time when people want to hear you, and when you’re doing what you love inside and out. My proudest accomplishments include: performing at CMA Fest summer 2018, working with a Billboard #1 songwriter (Christian Davis, co-writer of “Thank God” by Kane Brown) by invitation as a co-producer on my song “Zara 2020,” achieving a TOP 10 Album on the Amazon Pop/Rock charts, and getting consistent indie radio airplay. Beyond all that, I am most proud of being a good son to my parents and a good friend to my friends.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I graduated from The College Conservatory of Music with a degree in music education–when in came time to decide college degrees, my options were limited: a music composition degree would be music theory intensive (not the most creative of environments), and a degree in piano and voice performance would be prohibitively classical (which is merely one of the genres I enjoy, not the only). I taught full time for three years as a director of piano in a performing arts school. It was a comfortable, dependable job but never my passion. It merely saved up a nest-egg for a move to Nashville to pursue my dreams as a singer/songwriter. After I moved here, I taught part time at a local middle school. It was a living hell environment due to their appalling lack of infrastructure and the school’s very poor system of discipline. After six months, a school change in curriculum was the tipping point: in tears I submitted my resignation without hesitation. Less than two weeks later, I got the call to audition for Mags McCarthy’s band for a summer tour, including a gig on the Hard Rock Stage at CMA Fest. I never would’ve been able to facilitate this with the teaching position, it seemed destined for me to quit.

One additional postscript: from an early age until I was in seventh grade, I was routinely told by classmates to give up on music, I’d never make it, I couldn’t sing and men didn’t do that type of thing. It only intensified my passion to hold on to what is in my heart.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, connecting with people on an emotional level in concert and with recordings. I’ll never forget a woman in tears telling me after a performance that my singing helped her personally that night. That made the entire gig worth it, and then some. I’ll never forget the pure ecstasy of hearing a symphonic concert band (in high school) play my composition: it was truly electrifying. One of the most moving stories involved an album I put out independently in my senior year of college in 2013. Years later, I received a message from a man I had never met: put simply he was the significant other of someone a grade younger than I, and I barely recognized his name. “Your album, BEST KEPT SECRET, got my through grad school.” The sheer amazement of a situation that occurred earlier this year: I was about to submit a song of mine to a local radio station. As I logged into their website, I was astonished to find they were already playing it. That very minute.

You can’t buy that feeling. You can’t predict when it is going to happen. If a song enters someone’s conscience in a meaningful way, and touches their emotions, it will never leave. It will always resonate. You can’t program *that* on an AI program.

Contact Info:

• Website: TommyHabib.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tommyhabibmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TommyHabibMusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Tommyhabibmusic
• Other: Please alert me when this article is published–my website is undergoing maintenance and I would like to go LIVE with the updates prior to publication,

Image Credits
Annalise Loughead, Tom Korbee, Victoria Cunic, Alex Davenport, Tamara Habib.