The David Nail Story

David Nail has one of the hottest songs in the country right now with “Let It Rain.”  He toured this year with Taylor Swift, and recorded one of her favorite songs, the Top 10 hit “Red Light.”  He’s also recorded songs written by Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney.  But who is David Nail?  What’s his story, and how did he get from a small town in Missouri to the top of the country chart?  Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton sat down with David and found out.

When did you first move to Nashville?  In the fall of 1997, I moved to Nashville to attend a junior college here called Aquinas College to play baseball and continue my education.  There was a long part in my life when people expected me to go the sports route.  But as I got into my late teens, I got more into music.  So I thought I was smarter than everybody by picking Nashville.  But after 6 months here, and realizing that my mother wasn’t here, I quickly retreated back home.  I was so homesick, I grew up in a small town, and had never been anywhere.  So I felt the strings of home pulling me back.  So I went back home and continued going to school at Arkansas State.   After a year and a half of that, the pull of Nashville called me again.  So we did it again, this time I was 20 years old.  Eight months in, I had my first record deal, and thought to myself this is easy!  Thought I’d make records, tour, make videos, live a nice life in a nice house, and lo and behold that wasn’t the case.

Was music always a part of your life? I think it always was.  My father was a band director for 31 years.  I’d follow him up to the music room, steal my sisters records, listen to music.  But at the same time I was in sports was a big part in my life too.  We’d start bands in high school, my father would play whatever instrument we didn’t have.  But they didn’t last long.  That’s the thing about now, it still seems to new to me now because this is the first experience I’ve had touring in a band.

Were you always the lead singer?  Oh yes, I always had to have the microphone.  I wasn’t a good sharer.  But I mainly had to nurture my interest in music by myself, in my room.  I’d sing to my father’s records.  I tell Vince Gill the only reason I can sing as high as I do is because I’m still trying to sing to his records.  In 7th or 8th grade, I got the bug to learn guitar, and I joke that I started in 7th grade, and haven’t gotten any better.

Earlier you talked about coming to Nashville at age 20 and getting your first record deal, but it quickly went away.  What happened after that? I always say I got teh record deal so quickly and lost it so quickly, it took me a few years to figure out what happened.  It was tough.  You build relationships, you’re perceived as an artist, then you don’t have a record deal, so there’s some shame involved, and it got pretty dark for me in my mid-20s.  I had to come to a decision if I had enough courage and strength to give it one more run, or go back home and finish school.  Then a buddy of mine ran into me, and high was a high school baseball coach, and he asked me to help out.  So I did it and fell in love with it.  Coaching was something I always thought I’d do, and those kids changed my life.  They reminded me I had a gift, was still young enough to not give up on it, so after that next summer, I woke up one morning, went to the gym, and the fire was lit again, and it’s everything else has been history.

Must have been incredible that after 8 years you had your first Top 10 with Red Light: It’s funny how fate works.  When I was 20, I didn’t have a clue, and suddenly I was on planes, and I got caught up in it.  Then I fell pretty hard but I had a taste of it.  So if I got my mind right, there were people who had told me, “When you’re ready, look me up.”  So that morning when I went to the gym for three hours, and I drive home from the gym, and called someone at Universal, and that weight had been on my shoulder for 3 or 4 years had left me, and most of my first record were written by that epiphany.

Interesting too that your second record deal was with the same label as your first: Maybe that was me being naive, but when it came time for us to get a new deal, we were ready to shop it, and I had so many strong relationships at Universal, and so there would always been a piece of me that would have felt bad if I had gone someplace else and had the success we’ve had now.

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Category: Inside Story, VIDEO