Wide Open Country recently joined singer-songwriter Adam Wakefield on the boat to talk about his new music (and cast a few rods, too). Wakefield released an EP in early 2017 after a second-place finish on the 10th season of NBC's The Voice. Buoyed by the tune "Blame It On Me," the eclectic self-titled EP was Wakefield reintroducing himself as an artist.
Now he's ready to show the world his chops as a songwriter — starting with two new songs, "Cheap Whiskey and Bad Cocaine" and "Dry Days."
"Most of the tunes on the record I wrote by myself," Wakefield tells us while fishing on Nashville's Percy Priest Lake. "I wrote a lot with people when I moved to town. But my songwriting got better as I did it more and more, and in the last three years I got in this head space where I was sick of writing with people. So I was writing a lot by myself. My best tunes are the latest ones I've been writing I feel like."
Adam Wakefield released both songs on Friday the 13th. On "Cheap Whiskey," he finds a good mix between self-deprecating and acceptance of the struggles of a songwriter. "It's basically, 'until everybody thinks I'm as great as I think I am, I'll be riding high as a Georgia pine on cheap whiskey and bad cocaine,'" Wakefield says.
And on "Dry Days," Wakefield sings about that classic conundrum of living paycheck to paycheck. But it took an unexpected turn once he started working the song out, encompassing on almost "New Orleans" vibe.
The freedom to make those creative decisions helped Wakefield sculpt these new songs, the first from a future album.
You can find out more about Adam Wakefield's brand new music at his official website.
