Tanner Usrey is a quick riser in the Texas country world. His 2019 debut EPMedicine Men has had all five of its songs streamed over 4 million times, including two that have cleared 29 million.
The Prosper, Texas native’s authentic southern rock influenced sound has continued to resonate with audiences across the country. His most recent release, Give It Some Time, has already been streamed more than 2.5 million times since its mid-April release.
Right after the release of his newest single, Who I Am, in August, he sat down with The Cowboy Channel when he was in town to play a PBR event at the beginning of September.
TCC: How did you get started in music?
TU: I’ve always sang ever since I was like 5-years-old. I would just run around the house singing and my parents would tell me shut up, but I didn’t get really started until my senior year of high school. I saw Wade Bowen at a at a show, I think it was Wolf Dance, which is here in town, I went to my buddy Justin and I was like, that’s what I wanna do, and picked up a guitar and started playing. I started playing gigs like nine months after I started playing guitar, which was right after I graduated and then started my solo career in 2017 with Daytona Nights. And then in 2019 I quit my job, I was a skip tracer. Never looked back. So now we’re here.
TCC: You say you never looked back, but if I made you look back at the last five years, what are some of the highlights?
TU: First time I played Cain’s (Ballroom in Tulsa) is probably a big one, just because that was really the first time like we played a big venue like that, I’d have to say The Opry, which was like last month, that was surreal for sure. And then we got the Red Rocks coming up and The Ryman coming up. So it’s just one after another.
TCC: So I was gonna ask, that your career is still really young, what goals do you have for the future?
TU: Right now I just I wanna get to Red Rocks that’s all I can think about right now. I don’t know, I just wanna see where this thing goes you know…World domination.
TCC: What inspires your music?
TU: I listen to a lot of The Faces and (Lynyrd) Skynyrd and Rolling Stones. I grew up listening to Alan Jackson, obviously 90’s country, my brothers got me into the red dirt stuff in my teenage years., and kind of everything…a lot of Whiskey Myers in there too.
TCC: So what’s one of your favorite memories, whether be traveling down the road or on stage?
TU: I gotta go with The Opry, that’s my favorite career moment so far, just because I got to play with my bass player who’s been with me for six years, and then my guitar player have been with me for three. Yeah, I gotta go with that. That was the highlight so far for sure.
TCC: What does life off stage look like with some of the band members or when you’re not holding a guitar?
TU: A lot of video games… I like to hang out at home and just chill, you know.
TCC: Whats your go-to video game?
TU: It’s a nerdy game, Age of Empires. We like build cities and stuff, we fight people.
TCC: What can fans look forward to coming up?
TU: I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this but we’re releasing an album this year, I don’t know when, we’re working on that. More new music, more shows, bigger shows, there’s actually a brand new show that we’re gonna play tonight that we worked on last month. We just released a brand new single: Who I Am.