Kelsey Hart, a native of Kentucky, has quickly made a name for himself. Growing up singing in church and performing in his hometown band, he began making frequent visits to Nashville in 2016, where he split his time between working as a barber and writing and singing songs. All that hard work soon paid off in 2020 when he landed his publishing deal with Curb Records before signing on as an artist a year later.
“That’s around the time that I started getting a few of those outside cuts,” Hart told Music Mayhem of the publishing contract that helped him establish credibility as a songwriter, penning songs recorded by artists like Jake Owen, Dylan Scott, and Trace Adkins. “So right around that time that happened, and then wasn’t too much longer after that, I signed my record deal.”
In just the span of a few years, Hart has earned recognition emerging as a performer and as an artist in his own right, with ear-grabbing tracks like “Give You Mine,” “Crazy ‘Bout You,” and “Without You In It,” among others. But it was “Life With You,” from his 15-track debut album of the same name, that took on a life of its own, striking a chord with folks far and wide.
Upon release, the viral song, inspired by his wife, Auminee, debuted in the top 10 on Billboard’s Country Digital Songs Chart, settled into the Top 25 at country radio, and eventually amassed over 203 million global streams, earning him a well-received Grand Ole Opry debut. The lovestruck ballad was also personal to Hart, who, with his wife, selected the tune for their first dance at their wedding.
“I think for my first song to really take off to be a song that she’s a part of, it’s been special for us to be able to share. And especially with it being our first dance song, it’s special to us anyway,” Hart beamed. “And then just having a moment where we can celebrate it personally and professionally has something that’s kind of moved the needle for me has been really cool.”
“The whole journey with ‘Life With You’ and just seeing how many doors it’s opened on a daily basis for me as an artist and as a writer, just the amount of opportunities…. I think just having a song like that, I think has been the highlight of my career,” the singer/songwriter added.
Now, with his previous success and the recent release of fresh material like “Gone With The Wind,” “I Went To The Bar,” and the country radio single “Fireworks,” Hart is stepping into a new chapter that has both him and his fans excited!
“Fireworks,” which dropped in late June, finds Hart showcasing his smooth and distinctive vocals reminiscent of Blake Shelton over a slapping, modern country beat on lyrics about a tumultuous relationship built on passion and fire that burns bright where two people know full well getting together means they are playing with fire.
Of the song, written by Barrett Baber, Taylor Goyette, and Jordan James, and produced by Blake Bollinger and Jesse Frasure, Hart shared, “Yeah, I had a friend of mine send me that song that’s a writer on it, and I just loved the song. I thought they’d done a great job lyrically writing the song, and kind of had done it in a way that I hadn’t heard before, as far as going down a dead-end road back to a relationship that wasn’t really getting anywhere. Just the way they put it for the metaphor of it looks good for a minute, but at the end of the day, it ends up in the dirt. And I just thought that was a really unique approach to writing that kind of song. So that’s kind of what led me to recording it.”
Of selecting outside cuts despite being an in-demand songwriter himself, Hart said, “I think just the uniqueness of that lyric and the melody. I think, as a writer, that’s what we’re always trying to do, is say something in a different way than it’s been said before, with a unique melody. So when I hear that on an outside song, it catches my ear.”
Hart’s most recent release, “Something That You’d Miss,” dropped on Aug. 22, and it’s already a radio-ready banger with highly relatable lyrics about the heartbreak and nostalgia of a relationship that didn’t pan out between two lovers.
“A little more Carolina / A little more sunrise on the coast / A little more like magnolias /Dropping leaves on a winding road / The way you talk about your hometown / And everything that makes it what it is / If I was a little more like that / Maybe I’d be something that you’d miss,” Hart sings throughout the chorus of the song.
“That was a song that I’ve been proud of for a while. And as we’re putting out singles as we go, I mean just making sure it makes sense for where I’m at in my career and what I want to say and picking the best ones,” Hart shared. “‘Something That You’d Miss’ was a song that I co-wrote with a few buddies of mine, just about an experience that one of our buddies had. That was the story of that song, of a girl coming to him and thinking that she wanted to be in his hometown and be there with him. And turns out she missed her hometown and wanted to get back home and wasn’t anything crazy with the relationship that happened, but she missed her hometown.”
As for whether or not fans can expect a full-length album soon, Hart suggests, “That’s still up for debate. We will obviously have a few more singles come out before the record, and I don’t know if we’ll group ’em and include ’em on the record or if we’ll just have an all-new, whole record be new. I think it’s still a little early to tell.”
“I’ve been writing for a long time and still write every day, so it’s kind of constantly changing,” he continued. “We’ve got a bunch that we’re really excited about that feel like they’re locked in, but you never know until it comes time to get it out.”
In addition to rolling out potential chart toppers, Hart recently wrapped a tour with Restless Road, but says he has a stacked calendar of shows coming up.
“Yeah, so we’ve got some shows here coming up at the end of the year. We’ve got one in Missouri, we’ve got one in Kansas. We’re going to be out in California. So we’ve got a few different shows happening,” he shared. “And then we’re also just going to be getting ready for the record that’s coming out next year. We’re going to start getting in the studio here in the next month or two and start recording. And so we’re excited about that.”
For more information on Kelsey Hart and his new music, visit his official website.
