The Canadian-born country music artist offers another outstanding track from his upcoming album.
Robby Johnson was born in Quebec, Canada, but he got to Nashville as fast as he could.
The up-and-coming country music artist moved to Music City in 2012, eager to fulfill his dreams of success as a singer-songwriter. Not surprisingly, given the long odds faced by any new talent, he was not an overnight success. In 2016, however, he scored a breakout hit with “South of Me,” a well-received single that he wrote with Anthony Smith and Frank Myers. Not only did it break the Top 20 on US country radio charts — an extremely rare accomplishment for an independent artist — he actually was invited to perform the song on The Late Show with David Letterman.
Since then, Johnson has continued chasing his dreams with the help of invaluable collaborators — Vince Gill plays an electrifying guitar solo on one of Robby’s songs titled “I Ain’t The Guy” — and the inspiring support of his wife Anne. “Right now,” he said a few days ago while calling from Nashville, “I’m finishing up my new album, which should come out at beginning of the year. I've been releasing a new single every six to eight weeks, so I have one coming up this weekend called ‘The Road I’m On.’
“So yeah, I’m keeping myself a lot in the studio. Because you’ve got to cut many songs to get to the real good ones.”
A few weeks ago months ago, Johnson released another really good one: “More Than You Think,” a lovely ballad in which he pays loving tribute to his grandparents that was released just in time for National Grandparents Day.
“It wasn't like, ‘Oh, I need to write a song for National Grandparents Day, I need to do this.’ It's really the way I write. Oftentimes I sit and I just fool around with my guitar and I play a chord progression, something that inspires me, and sometimes the words just come out.
“And sometimes, it’s only halfway through the song when I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, this is what it wants to be. And for this one, ‘More Than You Think,’ it was like, oh, this is about my grandparents and the impact they had on me. So that’s how it happened. It’s not something that I planned, like ‘Let’s do something for National Grandparents Day.’ It really happened by itself, which makes it even more beautiful. They’re both gone now, unfortunately. But this is my way of thanking them for everything they did for me.”
“The new single, ‘The Road I’m On,’ came about in a similar way. I just started fooling around with my guitar, and I just let it out. And first words that came out were, ‘Feels like I’m going uphill since the day that I was been born.’ It just keeps on coming out, and I just let it out. And it's about me growing up, with my father leaving me and making a huge mark on me, leaving a huge mark on me. I was just five. And at five years old, the foundations that you are aware of at that age is that you have a mommy and daddy. That’s like the nucleus. And then it broke. Life wasn’t making any sense anymore. I lost everything, my foundations, and I really had to start a new Robby. Like if I had a hard drive of the old Robby, like a backup somewhere deep inside of that little kid.
“And I did start a new life right after that. I remember images of those times when my father was there, but I can’t recall the emotions, just the images. So it’s really weird. Yeah, that’s tough. And sometimes I'll watch a movie and for some reason it brings me back there, and that’s the worst thing that can happen. Because then it’s — my God, it's so painful. That little kid will never ever understand what happened. So the song is a little bit about that. It's always in me. I’m never far from home. It’s always there, and it’s going to follow me for the rest of my life.”
But it’s not keeping him from continuing down the road toward something better. And yes, something healing.
“Like I said, when I was young, my father left. I was five. And that’s why I say in ‘More Than You Think,’ my grandparents had a huge impact on me. So every summer I would spend it in Hartford, Connecticut. And that’s where really, how can I say, my father abandoned us. My mom was kind almost — well, she wasn’t in a deep depression, but she was a little. She wasn’t that present. It was hard on her.
“So there weren’t any role models really around us. I had three older brothers, and it was kind of crazy, if you can imagine. So I found my role models in my grandparents, in the movies, the music and the sitcoms and all that. I was raised literally by American culture. And for me, it’s a way to give back, because I don’t know where I'd be if it wasn’t for all that. For me, it really is a way to give back, and keep the dream of my songs be the soundtrack of people's lives.
“I don’t know if you saw the Elvis movie, but there was that part where Colonel Parker says something like, ‘We’re seeking eternity.’ That's kind of what it’s all about: Making a mark in time, because I know that our time here is so short, and music is just a way to be remembered. Yeah, that’s what keeps me going.”
