Wade Sapp shares glimpses of an independent country artist's life on the road throughout the music video for his debut single, "Keep on Truckin'."
"'Keep On Truckin'' is a song all about traveling and pushing through the obstacles that you encounter on the road," Sapp told Wide Open Country. "I knew I couldn't afford to bring a film crew on tour so I borrowed a GoPro camera and got real, raw footage of life as a touring musician. The opening scene has me waking up in a motel in the middle of an actual battle with food poisoning. Hop in the van with me as we go from Nashville, Tenn. to Costa Maya, Mexico and everywhere in between."
Sapp cites two inspirations for "Keep on Truckin'": the gritty lyrics that set Waylon Jennings, Bobby Bare and others apart in the 1970s as well as the wide-spread cultural obsession back then with truck drivers.
"My mom's second husband was a wiry truck driver from Ft. Pierce, Fla.," Sapp shared in a press release. "I used to sit on his lap and steer the truck at the ripe age of 5 years old while listening to Jerry Reed's 'East Bound and Down' and other trucker songs. I wanted to pay homage to that great era of country music and trucking culture with this song."
Sapp was born in Okeechobee, Fla. and came of age in Marietta, Ga. Before relocating to Middle Tennessee in 2016, Sapp studied at the NASCAR Technical Institute and worked as a mechanic.
A 2020 OurVinyl Session raised Sapp's profile through versions of "Keep on Truckin'," "The Boys We Were" and "Recently Single." He's also found acclaim outside of Nashville, Tenn.'s singer-songwriter community through spins on SiriusXM's Outlaw Country station.
Sapp's debut album, Radio Check, will arrive later this year.