Oliver Anthony is currently working on his debut album after becoming a viral sensation over the summer with his song “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and he gave an update on the project in a new interview with Billboard this month.
High Expectations For Debut Album
The singer revealed that he is currently in talks with a prominent producer to helm the project, though he declined to reveal said producer’s name as the deal is not yet complete. While he can’t share much about the upcoming project, Anthony does have high expectations for his new material, not least in regard to its literal audio quality.
“I don’t know if I can say who I’m recording with or not, but he’s one of the best in the business,” he shared. “In my opinion, it’s probably going to blow away everything else I’ve done so far, because everything has been recorded with just the internal microphone off of an about broken-in-half Android phone with a cracked screen. Even the radiowv videos used very basic equipment, so I had never had anything recorded with studio-quality equipment. So even just the vocal quality should absolutely knock people’s socks off, compared to what they’re used to hearing.”
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Wants To Make Authentic Music To Represent Who He Is
The 31-year-old explained that despite his newfound success, he wants to keep his creative process the same and make sure his music still represents who he is.
“I want everything to still be authentic, and I want it to be me playing the music and not like a whole group of people involved,” he said. “Everything now is just so carefully refined and edited, and so we won’t have any of that. If anything, some of the songs are going to be recorded on older equipment from the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s.”
Anthony and his collaborators will be working the album in Georgia, as Anthony noted that he is “never going to be in Nashville sitting with people co-writing, ever.”
“Most anything I put out is going to be something I write just by myself and if I do co-write something with somebody, it’s going to be with another artist, and we’re going to be singing the song together,” he explained of his aversion to Nashville co-writes. “I don’t ever want to sit in some writing circle somewhere and have somebody in khaki pants and a collared shirt figuring out what my words are from my song. There’s a million other people that can go do that. I’m not one of those guys.”
New Music Will Not Sound Like Something Impacting Country Radio
The singer’s real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford, and he shared that he adopted his stage name (which is billed as Oliver Anthony Music) as an honor to his grandfather and “because I’ve got a lot of songs about a lot of things that I wouldn’t necessarily want an employer to hear.”
“The reason I stick Music on the end of the name is because it really is supposed to be a representation of music that would have existed in his era when he was alive, living up in the mountains,” he added of his sound. “They had dirt floors, they were scrounging to survive, they didn’t have electricity. I’m trying to represent that type of music [and] maintain the simplicity that would have just been necessary at that time. It’s not going to sound like something that’s going to be on country radio, by any means.”
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To Embark On Headlining Tour
Anthony is not signed to a record label and has no interest in doing so, though he is signed with United Talent Agency and recently announced the 40-date Out of the Woods World Tour. The trek will begin in Europe on February 1 before Anthony arrives in the U.S., where he’ll kick his stateside leg off with two shows at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
“There’s a lot of exciting things to come, but the most important part of all of it is just gonna be the opportunity to travel the world and connect with a lot of people,” Anthony said of his future endeavors. “If there’s any mission statement out of any of this or any purpose… I really hope if I accomplish anything out of my career in music, it’s just to give the voiceless a voice.”
