Name: David Nail
Start: 2024-12-05T19:00:00-05:00
Location: The Lyric Theatre

David Nail Meet & Greet Experience
- Meet & Greet with David Nail
- Individual Photo with David Nail
- One Autographed Commemorative VIP Laminate and/or Signed 8x10
- Early Entry
- Early Access Merchandise Shopping
* THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE TICKET TO SHOW. SHOW TICKET MUST BE PURCHASED SEPARATELY

Of the title track “Oh, Mother,” on David Nail’s 2019 debut solo album, Rolling Stone noted that “the song creeps in like a sunrise - quiet, restrained cello and keys are the only underpinnings for Nail’s powerful vocals, at first. Then it slowly builds to something more massive and majestic.”
Those are the kinds of words the country artist’s words and music evoke. Respected up and down and beyond Music Row, he has written or co-written multiple hits, including “Memphis,” “Red Light,” “Nights on Fire,” and “Let it Rain.” His singing has also garnered attention, giving him solid credentials that he’s earned despite his refusal to play industry games. His songs pull no punches in evoking the demons with which he has wrestled through much of his life. It’s not so much an act of courage to write about depression and its effects; it is simply who he is, and in conversation and music, what he must say.
Nail has always used the practical and the personal to guide his work, although in the beginning, he made mistakes. The Missouri native made his way to Nashville and began by writing about things he didn’t know. “I’d written songs about a lot of things I had not lived or experienced,” he recalled. “It was like I’d gotten onto this train, and I had to sit there and just hope it kept moving. I was so young and naïve and ignorant. I started trying to figure things out, but I really needed someone to tell me I wasn’t a moron. First and foremost, I credit Frank Liddell with helping me find where I should live musically. He’s always told me it’s all right to experiment.”
The celebrated producer helmed Nail’s debut album, I’m About to Come Alive and the three that followed: The Sound of a Million Dreams, I’m a Fire, and Fighter. The works ignited Nail’s reputation as an innovator and creative risk-taker, but he felt restless. Suffering with bouts of what he called “mental illness,” and chafing against commercial pressures, he left the only recording company home he’d known. “It’s human nature to rebel against what people expect you to be,” he said. “I ended up doing more organic and left-of-center than anything I’d ever done before.” The result was his independent 2018 project, David Nail & the Well Ravens, created with longtime colleagues Jason Hall and Andrew Petroff. “It was the most fun I ever had.”
That project liberated him and led to that debut solo EP, Oh, Mother. It was followed by Bootheel 2020 and Bootheel 2021, projects dedicated to his hometown in the Bootheel” of Missouri. An album titled Best of Me came out in 2023 and he plans to continue recording this year, without self-imposed restrictions. He’s working without collaborators, as well. “The bad thing is that you don’t have that other person to throw ideas around with,” he said. “That’s the good thing, too. If somebody else’s idea is better than mine and makes the song better, it detours away from where my story is going. Some of the songs might have been a little more commercial, a little less personal, with another writer. But that’s not what I need now. I’m not scared to talk about or touch on anything, probably to a fault.”
David Nail’s journey is well underway, with no end in sight. He may never reach that last stop; it will always be just ahead, out of reach. On the way, he will have taken us on the ride of a lifetime.