Texas artist brings Undeniably Country voice to Bozeman
To hear Curtis Grimes sing is to take a trip through the heart of country music. A Texas native, Grimes was raised on a steady diet of Alan Jackson, George Strait and Merle Haggard, all of whom poured the look and feel of the American South into their songs. That classic music became the soundtrack of Curtis’ childhood.
As he grew older, though, his world became much wider. An impressive career as a collegiate and all-state baseball pitcher took him all around the state, and his growing success as a musician — including a stint on the first season of The Voice, where he competed on CeeLo Green’s team — gave him the opportunity to expand his reach. After hanging up his baseball cleats for good, Curtis began writing songs that looked not only at personal experiences in the Lone Star State, but life across the entire country as well.
In anticipation of his upcoming Bozeman performance, The Rolling Zone was able to get Curtis on the horn to talk his brand of traditionally-inspired country music, a new album, and taking his craft on the open road.
RZ: Hi Curtis. How are ya?
CG: Oh, pretty good.
RZ: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me today.
CG: Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me.
RZ: What are you up to? Headed to Nashville [for your show]?
CG: Actually I’m in Nashville right now, heading to run a couple errands, then we’re going downtown for CMA Fest activities.
RZ: Very nice. It’s been said your music is akin to the more traditional country artists, but that you also throw in your own spin. What kind of music to you like to create and perform?
CG: Especially with my most recent record [Undeniably Country], which I had full control over and a heavy hand in the mixing. Trent Willmon was a producer, and I told him I really wanted to make a more traditional sounding record. That’s the music I like, that’s the music I enjoy playing, that’s the music I relate to the most. I wanted the album to reflect me and where I am right now. So we did that, [and] it turned out great. We got some older musicians that had played on some of that stuff back in the 80s, kind of let ‘em cut loose and do their thing and didn’t worry about whether it got national, Top 40 radio play or if it [even] sold a copy. I just wanted to make a record I love and reflects me. Fortunately it’s worked out pretty well for us so far.
RZ: Yes it has. You’re in Nashville now and will be touring your home state of Texas in the coming weeks, but you’re also headed our way for a mini Northern Rockies tour, if you will. What can Bozemanites expect from your Mixers show on June 30th?
CG: We’re just gonna bring the exact show we play back home, you know. We’ve been going out of state the last three or four years, just playing as much as we can. That’s one of the cool things, we can go up there and play our and we don’t have to go play a three or four-hour bar set full of covers. That’s cool man, when you have people that far away from where I was born and raised that listen to and appreciate our original music. So that’s what we’ll do, we’ll play a lot of our stuff, play all of the songs on the new record. It’s a dancing set, I would say. We have quite a few up-tempo dancing songs. We just like to have fun, we like to give people a reason to come back and see us next time we’re up that way.
RZ: You’re touring in support of this new album, Undeniably Country. Does the title of the collection speak to what people can hear when they listen to this album?
CG: It does. I feel like that sums it up in a nutshell right there. That’s the theme. Even if the songs were maybe not necessarily ‘traditional songs,’ I wanted to make sure they had that sound. “If You Ask Me” was one, where we stripped it down, kind of bluegrass-style to keep it in that theme. Then the lead single, “From Where I’m Standing,” Thomas Rhett, Chris Janson, and Jaron Boyer wrote that song. I just found it on YouTube one day, I loved the song. It did have a bit of a more modern fell to it, so I brought it back and kinda countrified it a bit more so it would be that way.
RZ: You’re a performer, but also a songwriter. How much of that writing talent did you contribute to the songs on this record?
CG: I wrote all of them except for “From Where I’m Standing” and “If You Ask Me,” which was one of the Trent Willmon songs. “Had A Thing” was one I wrote by myself in Austin, “Everything Hank Did” was actually an old Keith Whitley song that we dug up and I was able to cut. It never got commercially released, but there’s a demo floating around. That was a cool thing to be able to do. There’s a couple I wrote with Trent and the other folks. All of them have a cool little story to go with them.
RZ: It’s great to have a nice mix. So you’re a baseball fanatic who played in college, and at one point had your sights set on the majors. How does one switch from a potential career in professional baseball to one in country music?
CG: I started doing music as a hobby my freshman year in college. When baseball fizzled out, I just put all my effort and energy and time into messing with the guitar and trying to write songs. That’s kind of how it developed more so than just having a plan and going into it.
RZ: You released your debut album in 2009, but your time on The Voice thrusted you into the national country music scene. Tell us about that experience and how it affected your career course.
CG: The Voice opened up the bubble outside of the region we were playing before. We got a national booking after that, that’s when we really got the ball rolling and started to play out of state. It was great exposure. If I could’ve changed one thing, I didn’t get to pick my songs. They tell you what songs to sing, that was the hard part. If I was going to do a contest to showcase my voice, I would pick songs that fit my voice a little bit better than the ones I had to do. But I was able to stick around long enough to where it made an impression. We did it for the exposure and we definitely got that. And I got to meet a lot of cool people too, and learned a lot about the industry. It ruined reality TV for me, seeing behind the curtain.
RZ: Oh I’m sure. Speaking of your home region, you’re a veteran of the Texas country music scene at this point. How does it compare to some of the other places you’ve performed now that you’ve toured around the country?
CG: Texas is blessed in that they have a scene that’s self-sustained — they have their own chart, they have their own circuit, venues and festivals, and the fan base is just impeccable. It allows people to even play that circuit and make a decent living. It’s a completely different world than the Nashville game. It’s kind of starting over, re-punching the clock. Some of the radio stations are crossover, but are different for the most part. And new audiences that might not be familiar with that Texas scene, so they might not know who you are from Adam. It’s fine, it’s okay. That’s the luxury of being able to go and play places because we don’t have that national radio support for the most part. That scene gives you a platform to build on.
RZ: You’ve certainly got some aspirations yet to fulfill. Music-wise, who are some of your heroes and how do you pay tribute to them through your own music?
CG: Alan Jackson and George Strait probably molded me. I’m a big Keith Whitley fan, and I like Vern Gosdin’s voice a lot. I’m a big fan of voices, a good country voice. I probably steal a lot of runs and vocal things from that. I never really had voice lessons so that’s how I learned to sing, singing those guys’ songs. So I’m sure there’s subtle hints of this and that. And content, the stuff that I write, is based around a lot of the guys I listen to.
RZ: Go with what you know. You’re obviously a big country music fan, but would we be surprised to learn of other genres you enjoy or are inspired by?
CG: In my opinion, a good song is a good song, regardless of what genre it is. You may not like a particular style, or even an artist for that matter, but I feel like a good song’s a good song whether it’s rap, rock, hip-hop, country, a jingle for a gas station. I feel like it’s undeniable when it’s a good song. That being said, I’m a fan of good songs. I try not to put borders on music so I can appreciate all different types.
RZ: Where do you go from here? What are your career plans for the immediate to near future?
CG: We’re only on our second single off this record, but we just want to play as many shows as possible. That’s the one thing we have control over, and it’s one surefire way to reach fans regardless of any of the other stuff that’s going on.
Catch Curtis Grimes at one of these shows when he and his band bring a performance to Mixers Saloon on Friday, June 30th at 10pm. Tickets to this 21+ party at Bozeman’s only country bar are $10 and available at Mixers only. Doors at 9pm. Learn more about Curtis and discover some of his music by visiting www.curtisgrimes.com. Undeniably Country is now available for download from all major digital music services. •
