Nashville Scene

Does anyone really read long bios? I don’t. Here are a few facts you might want to know about me (aka, the important things): 1. I write songs and perform them for a living and some people seem to dig it (I think that’s really cool) 2. I live, work, and love in Nashville Tennessee 3. My favorite Ninja Turtle is Donnatello (I bet yours is Michelangelo) 4. I miss my mom cooking me fish sticks 5. I write for Warner Chappell Publishing 6. I’m from a big family and I want a big family 7. I have an uncanny knack for finding unbelievably awesome T-shirts at the thrift store (I believe it is my spiritual gift) 8. I always say that I sound like If David Wilcox and Patty Griffin went on a double date with Jonny Lang and Shawn Colvin 9. Every single time I go to Taco Bell I buy two Cheesy Gordita Crunches and a grilled stuffed Burrito 10. When I write songs, I like to focus on the fact that we are all the same and we are all just searching for answers and trying to make sense of everything. It's about exploring life and celebrating truth when you find it 11. My sister broke my Sega Genesis when we were kids by spilling her cranberry juice on it. I don’t think it actually smoked when it happened but I like to say that it did Here are some places you can buy my music: CD Baby iTunes Napster The Long Version (if you're in to that sort of thing) Sean McConnell has independently sold one million records out of the trunk of his car! Ok so that’s a big old fib but now that I have your attention here’s the real information or “411” as the kids are calling it these days. Sean McConnell was performing on stage before he ever knew it. Ok, maybe hanging out in your mamma’s tummy while she is singing on stage doesn’t count as performing, but he was up there nonetheless. He was born into a family of full-time musicians. Growing up in the coffee houses of the Boston folk scene, Sean watched his parents playing songs written by Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, David Wilcox, Shawn Colvin, Harry Chapin, CSNY, James Taylor and others of the like. Unknown to himself or his parents, Sean was soaking it all in and locking it away somewhere inside. Unaware of it, Sean was enrolled in the most important class of his career. During Sean’s middle school years, the McConnell family left Massachusetts to move to Atlanta, Georgia. For Sean and his three siblings, this move was less than invited. Feeling alone in a new city, Sean quickly found a way to deal with the sadness of leaving friends and family behind. He snuck into his parents’ room, found his dad’s guitar hidden under the bed, and started to write songs. He took the few chords that his father had taught him and went to work. Surprisingly, it came naturally; it just fell out of his mouth and on to the page. Eventually, with the support of his family, he wrote more and more songs and started playing them out at coffee houses and school functions. By the time he left for college, he had two independent records and a respectable buzz around the Atlanta area. After high school, Sean moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee to study music business at Middle Tennessee State University. During his sophomore year, Sean started working with Quantum Talent, a college booking agency that works with NACA (National Association of Campus Activities.) In 2006, between studying and playing all over the United States, Sean signed a publishing deal in nearby Nashville with Warner/Chappell Music. In his first two years of the deal, artists such as Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Phil Stacey (American Idol) and many others had recorded his songs. The Heart Of My Music (In his own words) “For me it’s all about the SONG. I remember watching my father sitting at our dining room table for hours and hours with his pencil and pad crafting his songs; spending the time to find the perfect word, the perfect chord, the perfect melody. That really made an impression on me. When I write a song it really is a kind of science, an operation; but it isn’t mathematical or calculated, it is alive and breathing and moving. At the risk of sounding like a hippie on a soapbox, music is still powerful and holy and sacred to me. You can turn it into a product and a business, but you can’t start it that way. To me the genesis of a song has to be honest and unassuming. I truly believe that God hands me these gifts and it is my job to translate them as honestly as I can. You have to let a song be what it is. We can’t lose that. When I write songs, I like to focus on the fact that we are all the same and we are all just searching for answers and trying to make sense of everything. It's about exploring life and celebrating truth when you find it.” Sean is now 24 and works, lives, and loves in Nashville, Tennessee where he still divides his time between writing and touring.

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If the love of music can follow a bloodline then you could say that writer & recording artist Brent Cobb was born to be a musician. In fact, so many members of Brent’s extended family have musical ability that he can’t really name them all. Music was not only in his blood, it was played and heard in his home as a child and in the homes of most of his relatives throughout his youth. As this 24-year-old native of Americus, Georgia, would say, “It goes way deep.” Deep as it was, there was no way that he could know growing up that these same familial ties would lead him on a crazy journey that would take him from small town Georgia to the mean streets of LA and back home again, eventually landing him in Nashville, writing songs and collaborating with some of the biggest names in country music today.

For Brent Cobb, making music was not so much a decision but rather a calling. And his vision was as broad as his influences, ranging from rock greats like Tom Petty, Bob Seger and The Rolling Stones to folk icons Townes Van Zant and Bob Dylan to legendary stylists Otis Redding, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. Throughout his teens, he was overwhelmed with passion for the music that would later shape him. When he took up the guitar at age 13, it wasn’t long before he was playing and singing for family and friends, eventually joining local cover bands and writing songs of his own.

Shortly after his 18th birthday, Brent was a pallbearer in his great-aunt’s funeral, along with his cousin, record producer Dave Cobb, who returned to Georgia from LA for the funeral services. Dave had recently completed country music legend Waylon Jennings’s son, Shooter Jennings’ first album. Unbeknownst to Brent, his parents slipped Dave a CD of some songs Brent had written and recorded. Within two days of returning to Los Angeles, Dave had listened to the songs, played them for Shooter and was on the phone to Brent, inviting him to LA to record what would become his 2006 debut album, No Place Left To Leave (produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings).

The album release contributed to Brent’s decision to relocate to Los Angeles in 2007. Having never lived outside of the state of Georgia, adjusting to big city life was a shock to his system. Landing a job in the art department for a film production company, he spent his days building sets and his nights trying to move his music career forward, all the while questioning whether L.A. was truly the right place for him. Six months into his stint, Brent got lost returning from the airport. Stopping to re-orient himself with his window down, he looked up to find a gun in his face. He was being robbed at gunpoint. It was time to move back to Georgia.

Prior to his time in Los Angeles, Brent had fronted regional band, Mile Marker 5, in Georgia, occasionally opening shows for Capitol Records recording artist and fellow Georgian Luke Bryan. Bryan took an interest in Brent and generously made a handful of Nashville based introductions, which led him to Carnival Music where he’s been writing ever since.

His affiliation with Carnival Music precipitated a move to (a much more manageable city) Nashville, and he has since penned songs for several major label projects, including Kellie Pickler, The Eli Young Band, and Luke Bryan.

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Logan Brill finds her roots in the rich musical soil of East Tennessee. This Knoxville native migrated slightly West to Nashville to pursue an education at the acclaimed, Belmont University. Not wanting to limit herself to music, though, she earned a degree in French with a minor in vocal performance, always knowing, however, that music was her true path. It was this instinctive course that led her to signing with Carnival Music in early 2012. Carnival Music is home to the talents of David Nail, Troy Jones, Scooter Carusoe, and many others. Carnival is owned and operated by producer Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert, Kellie Pickler, Lee Ann Womack) and is responsible for generating eleven number ones in the past decade. She has recently begun writing for her forthcoming project with producers, Matthew Miller and Oran Thorton, and is set to begin extensively touring during the summer of 2012.

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