Uncommon Ground ^ Nick Smith

	Nick Smith Nick Smith’s musical inspiration came first in the form of his older brother. Nick had always played the guitar and had frequently played in different bands with friends but had never really taken his own music too seriously. This was until his brother, who was trying to learn the guitar at the time, really started pushing Nick to focus on his own music. Nick ended up taking his brother’s advice, which lead to him finding his current position; with a young but promising career as an up-and-coming touring musician. In the beginning on Nick’s solo career he had only a handful of his own songs and started playing these frequently at local open mic nights at bars around Oklahoma City. These open-mics eventually turned into an even bigger deal for him, drawing people who had somehow gotten a hold of his home-recorded demo that had been spread around by friends. After seeing this response, Nick realized that he had wanted to branch out even more with his music. This realization came right at the end of high school for Nick and left him with a tough decision to make. He had thought about attending college to focus on music before deciding to stay in his home state, enrolling at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla. Stillwater, a small town, which is known as the birthplace of red-dirt country music, is home to a music scene that consists of a long street of bars known as ‘The Strip’ which play host on a nightly basis to the most popular country artists from across Oklahoma and Texas. ‘The Strip’ jumpstarted the careers of many well-known country acts such as Garth Brooks and Cross Canadian Ragweed and had not seen any other types of acts make it out of the town until the All-American Rejects were signed out of Stillwater in 2002. Even knowing that Stillwater was not the most fertile ground for a singer/songwriter to get his start, Nick started gigging at some of the clubs on ‘The Strip’ trying to build a local fan base. In the meantime, Nick’s music was being spread around by some devoted fans in the Texas area, allowing him to build fan bases in two great music cities, Dallas and Austin. His music continued to spread through word of mouth and through the Internet as fans started popping up across the country. It was soon clear that this grassroots approach created much more of a demand for his music in other parts of the country besides Oklahoma and Texas and prompted Nick to try to reach some of these other areas. His next step was to get some of his music out by releasing a CD, which can be tough for an artist without a budget to work with. Nick did not let this hold him back and during Christmas of 2003, he went into the home studio of his bassist Ryan Dillman and began working on his first release, a 6 song EP titled ‘Paradise’. Nick decided this was the way he wanted to go and liked the idea of having complete control of this project. [He came out of the studio with recordings of these six songs, in their most pure and simple form. The finished product was an EP that drew praise from both the press and fans. One review in Oklahoma State’s Daily O’Collegian said, “Smith could definitely give some of the most popular male vocalists a run for their money. With dead on guitar playing, and the vocals to match, there isn’t much that could stand in the way of Smith.” Another review from DiscoveringArtists.com highly praised Nick’s ability to write melodic songs that stuck with the listener saying, “Smith’s strongest asset besides his clear, depth-filled voice is his ability to deliver catchy, rhythm-based tunes that shine.” After the release of the EP, Nick continued to play across Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, slowly building more and more of a fan base in each city. While people in these areas were catching on to his music because they were getting the chance to see him live, the grassroots promotion efforts of some of his dedicated fans continued to bring in new fans from all across the country, many of whom were asking when Nick would be making it to their area. Nick decided he wanted his next step to be to hit the road to try to get in front of as many people as possible but school was holding him back. Nick had just completed his freshman year of college in the spring of 2004 but did not feel fulfilled by just going to school and playing music on the side. He wanted the opportunity to go wherever his music would take him and created this opportunity for himself by deciding to put school on hold starting in the spring of 2005. Nick had decided to drop everything, including school, and to focus solely on his music career. Even with the uncertainty that lies ahead of him, one thing is sure. Nick is much more happy and comfortable with the unknown and open road ahead of him now that he is able to put all of his effort into the thing he values most; his music.
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Uncommon Ground Past Show Dates
2005-04-12 (1180 days)	Nick Smith
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