Featuring a mix of gritty backwoods soul, rock ‘n’ roll swagger and velvet-thunder vocals, Nate Smith’s personal journey inspired him to be a beacon of country-music hope, an inspirational mission he puts front-and-center. A California native, former worship leader, and lifelong music lover, Smith approaches that mission with a background as eclectic as it gets. Learning guitar at 13, Garth Brooks, Elvis Presley and Bob Seger were among those informing his powerful, fire-from-within vocals, while Michael Jackson made him crave the spotlight and Nirvana gave his sound a jagged edge. In 2018, Smith lost everything he owned in the devastating Camp Fire which tore through Paradise, California, now known as the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history. Although his family was safe, he struggled to cope and turned back to music, hoping that it would help comfort himself and others. Help it did, inspiring a month-long road trip across the U.S. to Music City, writing music and playing dive bars along the way.
Since making it to Nashville, the singer’s “powerhouse tenor” has become “perhaps country music’s fastest-rising beloved voice” (The Tennessean). He’s made a huge splash with songs such as his Platinum-certified multi-week No. 1 hit “Whiskey On You,” which was lauded as the “breakup song of the summer” by Country Now and “an enormously satisfying country kiss-off anthem” by Stereogum. The smash hit has racked up over 405 million total global on-demand streams to date, contributing to Nate’s billion total catalog streams globally. Nate released his debut, self-titled album along with the deluxe version on April 28. The hefty 26-song project hit #6 on Billboard’s Country album charts and #30 on the Billboard Top 200. His latest single off the album, “World On Fire,” is currently Top 5 and climbing at country radio.
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