Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean C. Thomason.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born Aug. 2nd, 1971 at Ft. McPherson Army Hospital in East Point, GA to a young mother who was still the dependent of my grandfather, a retired Lt. Col. of the Army Air Force and Army Air Corp.
My mother, only 19 years older than me, had me on her own with some help from my grandparents. My parents had met via a pen pal situation when my dad was in Vietnam. When he returned home, he met my mother, and they started a short-lived relationship which resulted in my birth.
My mother moved us into a single-wide trailer in a rough mobile-home park at the corner of Jimmy Carter and Buford Highway where trailer fires and Burglaries happened frequently. There was even a shoot-out in the trailer next to ours, between Charlie, a full-blooded Cherokee Native American, drive-in movie projectionist at the 85 Starlight Drive-in, and a buddy of his, over the mis-affections of a woman. That encounter resulted in a bullet passing through our trailer and mere inches over my head while I lay sleeping. We moved from that location soon thereafter and I called a half-dozen or more apartments my home as I grew into early adolescence.
I didn’t grow up with anyone playing an instrument around me, but my grandmother did have an old Emenee Air Organ that had numbers at the top of each key that translated into some standard songbooks that replaced the numbers for notes. So, one could very quickly pick up playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, or “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain”, with no real training. I spent hours learning these numbered songs and learning songs that I would hear over the radio or TV.
This along with my mother always playing her favorite Southern or Classic Rock tunes on our record player or my grandmother listening to the classic country and western songs from the 50s & 60s over her AM radio set me up for my love of that brand of music. Her personal favorite was Marty Robbins and I have always loved Marty’s pure tone and the storytelling about the old west he would do in his songs. This and my grandfather’s favorite John Ford & Spaghetti Western Movies featuring the music of the great Ennio Morricone really resonated with me as a child and I always wanted to experience that Western lifestyle.
Another catalyst for my love of country music has always been the TV shows and movies of the mid-70s and the classic Westerns that my grandfather was always watching. “Hee-Haw”, “Dukes of Hazard”, “Smokey & the Bandit” and “Dallas”, were the pinnacle of my upbringing.
The first two bands that I ever saw Live were Fleetwood Mac in 1977 at the Old Omni in Atlanta, and the Charlie Daniels Band at another Atlanta staple, The Fox Theatre in 1979, on the heels of “The Devil Went Down to GA” that sealed-up my love for Live Music.
I received some formal training on Saxophone when I reached middle school and that expanded into early high school life where I was involved in Marching, Concert, and Jazz bands. By high school, I had started teaching myself several other instruments without any real training. Synthesizers, Drums, and Bass Guitar were some of my favorites, but it was the attention of the singers in bands that I was seeing that attracted what started to connect with me the most.
Due to the strong military heritage in my immediate family and the need to get the money together for college, I joined the Army as an Infantryman on August 14th, 1990, twelve days after Iraq invaded Kuwait, and spent my first tour of duty, not deployed to the middle east, but to a mechanized infantry unit of the 3rd Infantry Division in Vilseck, Germany. I was often homesick, and I found that singers like Garth Brooks and George Strait helped keep me connected at home. I finished my European tour and went to Ft. Benning, GA where I was stationed for a year and was deployed shortly to Saudi Arabia in 94′.
Upon separation from service in 95′ I fell into working small jobs as a pizza delivery driver, bartender, and customer service agent and I started singing in an Alt-Rock Band called “Paydirt” in the Atlanta Rock Scene of the mid to late 90s. I had the opportunity to work with Butch Walker in his first days as a producer here in Atlanta and Butch recorded my band’s first songs to get noticed on local rock radio we enjoyed some local notoriety and almost penned a record deal in late 99′, with Maverick Records.
However, when that deal fell through, my band and I had a major falling out and I once again turned toward the military to get me out of town and to do it quickly. Before I knew it, I was back in Germany, in an infantry unit trying to get a slot in the Special Forces Assessment and Selection course. I wanted to become a member of the “Green Berets” due to an uncle of mine being in the “Green Berets” during the Vietnam conflict. Again, fate has its track for me, and I found myself unable to secure Airborne status due to a knee dislocation I had sustained, while on stage during my first performance back in Atlanta, at a spot called the Wreck Room.
As we launched into the first song of our set I set to jumping as high as I could muster as physicality was a huge part of my front-man persona. My weight came down on the shoddy stage assembly and my body went one way, and my knee went the other. The same night the 95′ Braves won their First World Series, I found myself forced to sit out the remainder of our short 45 min set, on the drum riser and sing through the mind-numbing pain, as my knee blew up to the size of a cantaloupe. This injury thwarted my dreams of becoming a “Green Beret,” something that I still struggle with to this day.
As I realized that my military career was not going to progress the way I planned, I was asked to sing the National Anthem for a change of command ceremony at my new duty station, “Ray Barracks” in Friedberg for the 1st Armored Division. Incidentally, this is the same Kaserne that Elvis Presley was stationed at during his time in the Army. After I sang the National Anthem a representative of the USAEUR Band came up to me and said I should look into something called the Soldier’s Chorus and see if they could use me.
After a quick audition process, I found myself singing and dancing in this type of Dog and Pony Show that showcased actual active-duty soldiers of varying Jobs (MOSs) outside of the band field, all placed together in a 2-hour show for a myriad of purposes. This quickly landed me a spot in the smaller, but highly versatile “NightFire” Rock band that specialized in not only rock but also in Classic Country and American folk songs like the ones I had learned to play when I was 5 on my grandmother’s air organ.
We toured all over Western and Eastern Europe playing for heads of state, festivals, and even ticketed performances with some of the best orchestras around Europe. We also spent a lot of time performing for our troops who were stationed in Kosovo and Macedonia. We would typically do close to 200-225 shows a year in “Nightfire” and we were always on the road.
During my time as the lead singer of The Army Rock Band in Europe (Nightfire), a few of the combo members said that if I took the time to learn guitar I could make a name for myself playing the pubs around where we lived in Heidelberg. So that’s what I did, at 31 years of age, I went to Cologne, Germany and I bought my first guitar, and I started teaching myself how to play. This evolved into a local pub in Mannheim hiring me to run their open-mic nights on Monday nights for the better part of a year until they started offering me the chance to have my shows on the weekend.
It was in these Irish Pubs in Germany that I started cutting my teeth on learning traditional Irish folk songs. These pubs continued hiring me for a few years after I had left the army and left Germany. These bars would hire me back to jump on a plane and come play music for them and it was amazing! This set me to become a full-time professional musician in the mid-aughts (2005-2019).
During this 14-year full-time musician status, I released a solo rock record “No One Gets to Stay the Night”, which I wrote while living in Germany and decided to move to Hollywood. When I got to LA, I fell into an entertainment company that fostered the opportunity to play in large casinos up and down the West Coast, as well as in Las Vegas. I’ve even had the privilege of performing on the same bills as Tony Orlando, Tom Jones, and Brian Wilson. During my time in LA, I noticed a change in my writing. I was slowly writing less and less rock ‘n roll and more and more country, western folk, and American styles.
The proximity of the desert landscapes that I had fallen in love with as a kid were mere hours away and I could feel that pull even though I didn’t fully understand it at the time as I was so busy trying to hustle and stay afloat in LA. I started taking film classes in LA and got into some light acting and directing as my time grew to close there and by the summer of 2010, I was back in Atlanta. I play music full time and am taking classes for business now, at the University of North GA.
I took another stab at playing rock music with a band I put together called “The Halls of Jupiter” with pals around Atlanta (Bruce Butkovich & Pat Kelly) that I had kept in touch with since the 90s and the addition of Rob Hammersmith, from Skid Row, on drums. Again, as much as I loved the songs I was writing with these guys, I realized I had never felt 100% in my skin when I was singing rock and roll as hard as I was singing it. It was such a destructive way to sing for me that in 2011 I had a health scare with having to have Vocal Polyps removed from my vocal cords and not being able to even speak for close to 3 months.
Not to mention that for 2 weeks immediately after the surgery I was awaiting the news if the “Growths” that they removed were cancerous or not. Luckily there was no cancer, but it was an especially terse time for me. After I had healed from the surgery, I made a conscious effort to limit the amount of hard singing I had to do instead of a softer approach. As I explored my new voice, time and time again, I kept going back to the old classic country standards. The tone and the keys that these songs were written in just seemed to lend to my strengths as a singer and I started to embrace this new crooner-esque style.
I did have a time in Atlanta, before COVID-19, where I was fronting this very popular 80s New-Wave era tribute band, where I would do the entire performance as a special character I created. This Bowie-esque type of performance was coupled with elaborate costumes and highlighted with some mildly “blue” comedy, all of which was written by me. Again, however, even though I loved the New Wave Music we were performing since my days in high school playing synthesizers in all keyboard bands, I still wasn’t fully satisfied creatively.
Just before the COVID-19 outbreak I also had formed a Classic Country/Honky Tonk band called “Broken Whisky Glass” (Spelling is for the Gaelic form), to satiate this newfound love I was fostering for the old-style Country music, and we were enjoying some buzz due to our fresh way of approaching the Classic Country Songs.
I also moved back in town to EAV in September 2019 to be closer to ATL’s music scene. I just happened to buy a house next to an amazing local singer/songwriter named Ben Trickey, who is a staple at the EAV Venues like the Earl and 529. I wanted to be back down in the belly of the ATL Music scene to see if I could get back in the rotation at some of these same clubs as a country artist I had played at when I was performing rock.
However, COVID-19 shut down all of that momentum we were picking up. During Covid, I found myself playing live-streamed performances and it was during these performances that more and more folks were requesting my renditions of the classic country and honky tonk songs. I also found myself finishing more songs than I had in the last 10 years.
My girlfriend Christie-Lynn is super important to this part of my story because without her I wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to compile everything and get into the studio. She was finding cool things within the gibberish-laden demos I was scratching out daily; she helped me weed out the good from the bad during this period. She was super instrumental in helping me consolidate my ideas and focus them into what became my first country release “Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”.
Once COVID-19 started to diminish, we started traveling more and more to Nashville and fostered relationships with some amazingly talented and loving friends at Robert’s Western World. We instantly hit it off with these folks and they started introducing us around East Nashville and we have become friends with so many folks that are vibrating at the top of their game. It’s truly inspiring. Just this past month I have had friends perform at both the Ryman and the Grand Ole Opry. All of these folks identify as being involved in the Ameripolitan Music Movement with its main Spokesman being Mr. Dale Watson and his Wife Celine Lee.
Even though I have not been able to perform my music or with my band in Nashville yet, I was invited and did sing the National Anthem at the American Legion Post 82 in East Nashville, which has kind of become the mecca for these Ameripolitan Artists, with their years-long tradition of Honky-Tonk Tuesday Nights headed up by the gents in the Cowpokes Kevin Mauzy and Brendan Malone. I hope to be invited to play in one of East Nashville’s local honky-tonks very soon.
In late 2021, I recorded my debut Country record “Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” with Damon Moon from Standard Electric Recording Studio in Decatur, with a host of amazing local musicians who were affiliated with the studio. It’s a concept album for a movie I have loosely scripted in my head. I always loved the variety presented in the classic soundtracks of late 70s and early 80s films, so I wanted that type of feel for this country record. I even went as far as to distress the graphic used as the record cover artwork. Some of the tracks on the record are easily specified to a specific era, and others learn more about my Alt-Rock influences.
I have never heard the same description given for music the same way twice. I even float into the Spaghetti Western genre on some of my tunes. Along with this recording session and the idea for the fictitious movie that these songs would accompany, I decided to call the band “The Strong Wind South”, after a song that my friend “Giffin Young”, a songwriter I met in LA, had written for his band. I called him up and asked if I could use that name when I was looking to start the band for the new record, and he said “Absolutely!” I always loved the imagery that his song created, and I thought it was a cool name for a band to boot.
I also would be remiss in not mentioning my love of classic country and honky-tonk fashion. It is an element that the Ameripolitan Brand wholeheartedly embraces and we always encourage our fans to come “Dressed to the 9s” when they come to a “Sean C. Thomason” Show!
In the last 2 years since the launch of the band we have filmed a performance for the Indie “Now Dig This” series, Been featured on WABE’s “Speaking of Music”, Opened for Roger Alan Wade at the Earl, Opened for the lead singers of “Lonestar”, “Little Texas”, and Restless Heart” in their new band “The Frontmen” and also played 2 nights in a row at the Cumming Music Festival. You can also find Sean Thomason & the Strong Wind South performing great shows at Good Ol’ Days in Cumming, GA, and in Marietta at Dixie Tavern frequently.
I am actively finishing up songs for the next “Strong Wind South” record, as well as some more classic-styled Honky-Tonk songs that will also be recorded in the same 2-week sessions at Standard Electric in February. I will be limiting my Atlanta shows in 2024 and exchanging that time to spend more time in surrounding markets both in Georgia and out of state.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Due to the projects, I’ve done in the past. Folks tend to be more skeptical to give my specific take on county music a chance. They don’t know what to make of it.
Is it Classic? Is it Americana? “Is it all Ballads”? …or I hear, “I don’t like Country” a lot from my friends, but when they come to a show where I am featuring a lot of covers, I consistently hear how much of our set list they loved and hadn’t heard in years. “You guys are the Country Band for people who don’t like Country Music”, is also something I hear frequently. The few chances I’ve had the opportunity to play my songs for people the response has been overwhelming, and it has encouraged me to continue to keep moving forward.
I also feel that age is a bit of an issue when you’re trying to gain attention as a new artist, no matter what genre you’re creating, but especially if you’re 10+ years older than everyone else that’s hot at the moment. At my age, you’re too old for the young folks who are looking for people their age, and folks my age kind of already have their favorites and they’re not particularly interested in finding new artists. Be that as it may, I have stopped being concerned with “Making it” and have fallen in love with just exploring the craft of songwriting.
I am so much more fulfilled as an artist now that I truly love what I am writing, how I am singing, and the people I am finding and surrounding myself with within the Ameripolitan Music Community. This comradery along with the small yet extremely diverse group of folks that have embraced listening to my music and following me to my live shows lets me know that I am exactly where the universe wants me to be now.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I am typically not an active fan of contemporary country music; however, I appreciate anyone who can connect with folks and get folks motivated to sing one of their songs and take the time to go see live shows.
I just prefer the classic style of Country and Western music and love that current communities like the Ameripolitan Music Scene are providing an outlet for folks who love to bring their classic country-themed original songs to a larger audience.
I’d also love to see a return to album-based support for newly emerging artists, where the entirety of an artist’s current work is digested in 35-40 minutes. I miss those days of taking that journey with like-minded individuals and comparing notes to the artist’s growth. It was so meaningful to the overall music appreciation experience. I lament its loss every day.
Contact Info:
- Website: seancthomason.com; seanthomason.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sean_c_thomason/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seanthomasonmusic
- Twitter: @seanthomason
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb2PRXDQC-nKKZqgriuhUvw
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/sean-thomason-452008177
Image Credits
Christie-Lynn, Shannon Ford, Chamlee, and Chad Edwards
