Hang and a enjoy 30-minute virtual private acoustic concert with ERNEST. Plus get songwriting tips!
Don’t be fooled by the title of Big Loud singer/songwriter ERNEST’s debut album. The tropics are the topic in Locals Only. But it’s not just about beach life, and it’s really intended for everybody. In Locals Only, ERNEST brings vast, multi-genre influences to bear in his own brand of Country, establishing a vanguard outpost in the islands, with the sound of the ocean’s waves and a cannonball splash adding to the luxuriating chill atmosphere. ERNEST’s list of influences – John Mayer, Alan Jackson, Eminem, Jack Johnson, and George Strait – explains the unique mixture, putting a modern spin on the stylistic mixology at the heart of Country’s never-ending evolution.
Born in land-locked Nashville, ERNEST is an adoptee who’s never met his birth mother, who had a freak heart attack at age 19 before pitching a championship baseball game, and who existed on a creative track, working as a Country songwriter while sharpening his vocal flow.
It was during an extended stay in St. John, when everything slowed down to leisurely island time, that ERNEST began to figure out how to combine his two different artistic personalities in a way that’s both lyrically clever and sonically irresistible. Locals Only heralds his logical hybrid. The nine-track Locals Only is brimming with engaging hooks, easy-going rhythms, Hip-Hop phrasing and subtle melodies. Lead track “I Think I Love You” threads spacey steel guitar alongside joyful syncopation, “Hard Way” teams a shiny brand of Country with a Celtic guitar riff and Pop-tipped harmonies, and “Brain On Love” exudes a trippy Maroon 5 sound while embracing a Childish Gambino sort of unpredictability.
Upon his return to Nashville, “Blacked Out,” led to a recording deal with Big Loud, who encouraged him to find his artistic path over the last several years. On another trip to the islands with Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley, ERNEST co-wrote an FGL ballad, “Blessings,” plus his own “Locals Only” and “Coolin’ (The Island Interlude),” setting an initial direction as his widespread influences came into focus. That newly found cohesion is on display in Locals Only. ERNEST now takes on a relaxed artistic demeanor, celebrating Delaney in the easy-going “Keep You Close,” slipping laidback Jazz guitars into “Insane” and venturing into breezy Tropical Cowboy territory in “Sugar.” “I make music,” he says, “for beaches, boats, backyards, bedrooms and bars.”