Music Stories

I was country music way before I ever grew to appreciate it. Let me explain.

My mom was born in Abilene, Texas before moving to Clearfield, Pennsylvania as a young kid. The highlight of my year was always our summer trip to see my grandparents and spend time at the Clearfield County Fair.

If you know nothing else about Clearfield and its county fair, know this: she’s country. I’m talking cowboy hats, pit pork barbecue, and yes, country music everywhere you turned. LeAnn Rimes, Reba McEntire, Sheryl Crow, Travis Tritt, Garth Brooks. They were the background soundtrack to every summer that mattered growing up.

And yet, for whatever reason, I never actually respected country music. Not like it gave a damn, but I couldn’t dive into the sound the way I could with disco, rock, even pop. Something about it just didn’t land for me.

The Starbucks Moment

You know how sometimes, when you’re a kid, you genuinely can’t stand a certain food, but then someone offers you that same food at a party as an adult and you end up loving it? C’mon, I can’t be the only Green Eggs and Ham fan out there.

I was sitting in a Starbucks prepping for the release of Primavera — TriGlobe Recordings’ debut jazz vocal album, now live on all streaming platforms — when the opening riff of Ella Langley’s “Be Her” came through the speakers. Astounded by how such a simple sentiment could move me that completely, I left Starbucks, uttered a few expletives, and said to no one in particular: “Guess I’m making a country album.”

Farmhouse Wedding

That moment became Farmhouse Wedding, the debut release from Hatchet & Gravel, TriGlobe Recordings’ country imprint.

Studying the genre and figuring out different ways to invert it has been a creative joy I genuinely didn’t see coming. Country music at its best is brutally specific. Particular towns, particular moments, particular people. Once I stopped resisting that and started actually listening, something clicked.

The ten tracks on Farmhouse Wedding came from that place. Not trend-chasing, not genre cosplay. Just songs built from real emotional territory, written and directed with the same care that went into every track on Primavera.

Farmhouse Wedding releases June 22nd.

What This Means for TriGlobe

TriGlobe was never meant to be a single-genre label. The eleven imprints exist because stories don’t observe genre boundaries. A songwriter with jazz in their bones and country in their childhood summers doesn’t make one kind of music. They make whatever the story requires.

Farmhouse Wedding is proof of that. As the catalog grows, I’ll keep sharing updates here.

You have the story. Make it sing.

Josh
Founder, TriGlobe Recordings

Art is not kept in galleries. It is not flitted at with a feather duster or made to make us genuflect before its majesty. Art is not an alien harvesting human souls for the furthering of its species. Art is not exploitation and rage. It's not a dance around the uncomfortable. It is not forsaking outcasts. Art is all that is holy and all that is whole.

I never felt like I'd be an artist. If you'd asked me at five if I would pursue a career in the arts, I would have laughed. I couldn't draw. I couldn't paint. My handwriting looked like a wounded duck tried its hand at penmanship for the first time and barely lived to tell the tale. Then my father died when I was fourteen. And any plans of being a doctor or a lawyer or a realtor suddenly felt less…enticing. So, in the pain of his passing, I watched films and listened to songs. Somewhere along the line, I started writing poetry. The Poet Laureate of our small town picked my poem first place in our class. I was thrilled. Here was something I was good at—and soon learned could never be a career.

For years I wrote poems. Freshman year at Florida State, that was practically all I did. Then I got into film school, which was a dream come true. But filmmaking is expensive, and I didn't want to be in New York or Los Angeles. I'm a Pennsylvanian, through and through. So, I just…kept writing, with no way of knowing what would ever be shared. Then, not even a year ago, I started a YouTube channel about AI tools and stumbled upon Suno. I tested it out and could not believe my ears. The sound quality, the sophistication, even in the early editions was remarkable. Suddenly, it felt like my unique skill set had a seat at the table. My greatest strengths as an artist were coalescing and coming together in ways I could have never imagined. Now, I keep writing because that's who I am. What's your story?