Rising country star Devin Dawson has released his debut album Dark Horse.
The 12-song collection was produced by Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Little Big Town, Brothers Osborne), is influenced by Dawson’s eclectic music taste. The 28-year-old California native played in a metal band after high school but grew up listening to country, soul and R&B.
"I like to describe it as a new Nashville sound,” said Dawson. “There's country in the way I let you in. There’s soul in my melodies and voice. And there’s a lot of rock in the energy – I'm not afraid to get heavy.”
Dawson has written hundreds of songs but chose 12 for the album from a shortlist of about 50.
“The songs will raise their hands and they’ll fight each other out and the ones that want to make it,” he explained. “The ones that deserve to be there will be left standing at the end, and they’ll feel done and they’ll feel right.”
The title track is one of the most personal to Dawson. “It actually came after the record was done, after the pressure was off, and I feel like I’d been trying to write a song about myself whole heartedly and unapologetically for a long time,” he said, “but I didn’t want it to sound forced or contrived, so that’s why I had to let it come to me, and the best way to describe it is this is my honest truth in three and a half minutes.”
“Prison” taps into Dawson’s rock roots, “I Don’t Care Who Sees” was inspired by a couple making out, and “Second To Last” is about “being the guy right before she finds the love of her life, but being OK with it.”
Listen to some Dark Horse songs below:
Original article by Nicole Mastrogiannis at iHeartRadio