Singer-songwriter Randy Montana’s self-titled debut album clings to the rough edges of country’s musical highway with its compelling storytelling and vivid imagery combined with a raw but rocking guitar-driven sound.

He makes a powerful statement with his debut project, and critics have quickly taken notice. Southern Living named Montana as one of five “Best New Artists” in its Best of the South issue, stating, “The raspy-voiced Montana, a standout among his ‘I’m more country than you peers,’ breaks the genre’s mold but respects its heritage.” USA Today’s Brian Mansfield called Montana’s “1,000 Faces” his first favorite song of 2011, while People calls him “a must-hear artist.”

Roughstock.com says “1,000 Faces” is “an ethereal experience of epic proportions,” adding, “…Montana has a song that is a once-in-a-career kind of song, the kind of obvious, star-making or career-defining hit that every singer is looking for (and many never find.)” Music Row calls “1,000 Faces” “a sonic masterpiece” and says, “…this ultra-melodic outing is the kind of single that makes a star.”

He spent much of 2010 on the road, touring the nation with artists such as Sugarland and Little Big Town. “It was quite a learning experience, being a part of something where they put 12,000 – 14,000 people in seats a night,” he says of touring with Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush. “Kristian said one of the coolest things at the end of the tour. He said, ‘Thanks for keeping the musical integrity of this tour.’ That meant a lot coming from a guy like that.”

It was on this tour that Montana saw firsthand the strong and immediate connection people have to “1,000 Faces,” and this was months before it was played on country radio. “It’s incredible to play that song live,” says Montana, who wrote it with Tom Douglas. “People come up and say, ‘1,000 Faces’ was my favorite song of the night.’ It’s fun to play it live because you get this whole burst of energy yourself.”  

Montana’s boundary-free music captures the yearning of restless young men who are in a hurry to take life as far as they can, men who are sometimes too caught up in the moments of passion to have thoughts of regret. His gravelly voice, which sounds older than his years, tells of temptation and consequences while painting musical portraits of wheels turning, fires burning and women scribbling phone numbers on matchbooks.  

“With a debut record, you’ve got to come out and be like, ‘Man, this is me. Here are the things that I want to say through a song that hopefully will let others get to know me as a person, where I stand on things and experiences I have gone through,’” he says. “There are heartache songs, those love-lost songs, but there are some that are just good-feeling songs that just feel right. With this album I would like to give people a little glimpse into my life.”

Montana is a songwriter’s son who has found his own voice and quickly earned respect as a tunesmith on Music Row. He co-wrote nine songs on his eponymous album, and Montgomery Gentry recorded the Montana-penned “Can’t Feel the Pain.” Emmylou Harris was so impressed by Montana’s talent that she harmonizes with him on “Last Horse.”

His father is Billy Montana, whose hits include Garth Brooks’ “More Than a Memory,” Sara Evans’ “Suds in the Bucket” and the Grammy-nominated Jo Dee Messina hit “Bring on the Rain.”    “Growing up around it, it took me awhile to come into my own,” he says. “I never worried about being in a shadow or anything like that. But I also wanted to achieve that same kind of songwriting level that my dad achieved.”

Montana was born in Albany, N.Y., and moved with his family to Nashville in 1988 when Billy signed a record deal with Warner Bros. He started playing guitar at age 10, writing songs at age 16 and performed his first song publicly at one of his father’s writers’ nights at age 17. “I always grew up around music, watching him do it,” says Montana, who listened to Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Jackson Browne on family road trips. “I kind of grew up next to a stage. Anytime the family got together, the guitars came out.”

He was an award-winning high school quarterback, earning All-State honors for leading the state in passing yards and touchdowns his junior and senior years. He now applies that same dedication and discipline to the music industry. “On the football field, all 11 of us on offense have to work together at the same time to make a play work,” he says. “It’s just like that with the music industry, between your band, your label, management and booking agency. But knowing that at the end of the day, it is my career and I’m in control, I take a lot from my football experience because I grew up in that position on teams. I was always the quarterback; it was all in my hands.”

But he declined several football scholarships and instead opted to play college soccer at Nashville’s Trevecca Nazarene University before transferring to Middle Tennessee State University for two years, until music beckoned. During college he played in a band called Homestead that was frequently booked at fraternity parties and Middle Tennessee bars. “That was a great way to just get your chops up and understand how a crowd works and how to keep them entertained,” he says.

He worked odd jobs, including roofing houses, waiting tables and bartending, while writing songs in hopes of landing a publishing deal. Inspired by the music of Steve Earle, Chris Knight, Hank Williams, Jr., Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, The Wallflowers and Counting Crows, he eventually came into his own with a sound that’s a little left of country’s center.   

He signed with Sony Music Publishing in 2008 and began writing with its team of established writers. His burgeoning catalog caught the attention of Universal Music Group Nashville’s Joe Fisher, and he soon signed with Universal’s Mercury Nashville and began creating his debut album.

In addition to “1,000 Faces” and the debut single, “Ain’t Much Left Of Lovin’ You,” the Jay Joyce-produced album’s stand-outs include “Goodbye Rain,” in which he takes a one-way fast train out of town in search of a second chance and relief from his rear-view heartache, and “Like a Cowboy,” which describes a modern-day cowboy who has leaving in his DNA and constant disappointment in his wake. “Girl, I will love you the best that I can, but you need to know I am what I am,” he sings. “I’m not a bad guy, but I’m not a good guy at heart.”

“Last Horse,” which he wrote with his father, is about a man clinging to a dying relationship. “I don’t want to be the last horse left in this one-horse town,” Randy sings with Emmylou Harris. “When you hear a legendary voice like that singing along with your own voice, it’s a little surreal,” he says. “At the time, it’s kind of tough to realize the magnitude of what just went down. But then once it does sink in, it’s like, ‘This is going to be a tough thing to top.’”

“Assembly Line” depicts the daily existence of a manufacturing employee whose life is marked by numbers – production steps, unused vacation days, hourly rates and punched timecards. “It’s a job for the diligent heart and I’m just one of a thousand parts,” he sings. “You might think I’ve got it rough, but I don’t mind working on the assembly line.”

He co-wrote “Back of My Heart” and the high-energy “Reckless” with his father and Brian Maher. “Sonically, there’s definitely a theme,” he says. “We’re using 12-string all over the record, which is kind of Tom Petty-ish. It’s also B-3 heavy and has a very roomy drum sound, kind of like the Wallflowers.”

Randy’s goal is to have enough success that he can keep doing this. “I just love this,” he says. “I wouldn’t have it any other way – performing live, songwriting, being in the studio. I truly love it all.”

“Like they always say, ‘Find something that you love to do and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ So far, I feel that way. There’s nothing I would rather do. I want to take it as far as it can go.”

Singer-songwriter Kip Moore combines a raw and rustic voice with compelling lyrics of honesty to create a unique sound that’s simultaneously hypnotic and edgy. His voice is weathered by life’s detours and disappointments and strengthened by his dreams and determination. His music is infused with relentless intensity, both of passion and frustration.

The boy who grew up daydreaming about life outside of the small town of Tifton, Ga., became a man who has been continually inspired by Bruce Springsteen and Kris Kristofferson to paint vivid portraits with his lyrics.  

“I am not drawn to the fairytale kind of love,” says Kip, who had a hand in writing every song on his debut album. “I am drawn to the real-life experiences between a woman and a man. I try to sing about the way it is, but yet at the same time, what you can hope for between a couple. I don’t intend to paint of picture of what it’s really not.”

His music powerfully captures some of the contradictions that he grapples with personally. Although he’s from a large family and enjoys musical collaborations and performing onstage, he’s an introvert who is often more comfortable being alone. “There’s a combativeness to the music too, a fight within,” he says. “With ‘Faith When I Fall,’ I know how bad I need that spiritual realm, but yet I find myself on this other end a lot of times.”

Despite its edge, his music remains desperately optimistic. “I am hoping for what I have yet to become,” he says. “I feel like it’s hopeful for what I’ve yet reached, how I look forward to feeling, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

“I have truly lived my music to a sense, even the milestones I haven’t reached yet,” he says. “I have been in those moments. I’ve been at those crossroads with a girl: ‘Are we going to take that next step?’ I look forward to taking that next step, but I haven’t wanted to yet. I look forward to being ready for that.”

He was born in Tifton, near the Florida line, and was one of six children, the youngest boy who had three younger sisters. “You had to make your own fun, for sure,” he says of Tifton. “I had a lot of time for daydreaming. It was a great town, but I dreamed about getting out. I do enjoy going back now.”

His father was a golf pro and his mother was a painter who used anything handy for a canvas, whether it was cake plates or baby crates. She also taught piano and played the church organ. “I can remember sleeping in the pews,” he recalls. “She would bring us blankets and give us a coloring book and we’d sit there while she played.”

Weekends were often spent driving to the beach with his father for fishing expeditions. “He would play a lot of Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, Bob Seger, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen,” he says. “As early as I can remember, I always gravitated toward lyrics. Even when I hadn’t lived enough to understand then, they still shaped me. “

During high school, he secretly began playing his brother’s guitar because he was intimidated by the talent of his mother and older brother. “I would play when nobody was around, just figuring out stuff, watching his hands and trying to do the same thing.”

He played point guard for Wallace State’s basketball team and also played on its golf team in Hanceville, Ala., for two years and then transferred to Valdolsta State University on a golf scholarship. He wrote songs daily and joined a band that performed throughout the South, providing him with all of his income. “I was one of those kinds who didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” he says. “I didn’t know music was an option. Maybe it was one of those things where I didn’t quite believe in myself enough.”

Although he devoted every free moment to music during college, his parents still didn’t know about his musical activities. “They were all shocked when they found out about it because they didn’t know I could sing or play,” he says. 

After graduation and a short stint as a bartender on St. Simon’s Island, he moved to Hawaii on a whim with just a backpack, a surfboard and a friend. They slept on an airport bench the first night and then lucked into a hut that was $50 a month. They would walk or hitchhike the mile to the beach daily. After six months of this tropical paradise, Kip thought he had found his permanent home until his friend encouraged him to pursue songwriting as a living. 

“I didn’t know a whole lot about the world of songwriting,” he says. “I just did it for my own enjoyment. We talked about Nashville and I ended up saying, ‘I’m going to give it a shot.’ I flew back home and told my folks. They thought I was crazy. Now they’ll say different, that they knew all along.”

He drove to Nashville on Jan. 1, 2004 in an old black Nissan truck that contained one bag and his guitar.  He immersed himself in the songwriting community, observing songwriters’ rounds for two years and honing his craft before gaining the confidence to join in. After four years of performing locally, he caught the attention of Creative Artist Agency’s Mark Dennis, who called Universal Music Group Nashville’s Joe Fisher. Not only did Joe’s encounter lead to his record deal with MCA Nashville, but it also brought about his introduction to songwriter Brett James, who produced Kip’s debut album.

“Brett gave me the freedom to find who I was as an artist, the freedom for writing a different kind of thing, a different kind of melody and lyric,” he says. “He gave me room to grow.”

He also found important relationships with songwriters Dan Couch, Scott Steppakoff, Westin Davis and Kiefer Thompson, two of whom didn’t have publishing deals when he began writing with them. “There was definitely a special thing when we got in the room together,” Kip says. “I got offers to write with a lot of the bigger guns in town, but I enjoyed what I was doing with them. They were open to my ideas of being different.”

And different his debut project is, as evidenced by the album’s first single, “Mary Was the Marrying Kind,” the story of the one who got away. The dreamy and spell-binding song is the true story of one of Kip’s friends, who returned to his hometown after about six years and saw the once tall, lanky girl who had since come into her own and become a model.

“It’s the story of what every man in this world goes through at some point,” he says. “It’s the story of the one that got away that you should have paid attention to. Every town, every city, everybody knows one. Every girl believes they are Mary.”

The anthemic “Drive Me Crazy” is the story of two troubled teens who find a safe harbor in each other, if only for a few fleeting moments. “They are the getaway car for each other from everyday life,” he says. “When they’re together, what they live in is in the rear-view mirror and it’s just one big infatuation love story that lasts for a very short time.

With its irresistible bass line and drums, “Up All Night” is about continuing to live life to its fullest. “’Up All Night’ is the story of not wanting to give into your age and how life is supposed to be lived once you reach a certain age,” he says.

When Kip plays shows, he’s often asked for advice by aspiring songwriters. “Everybody’s experience is different, but I do believe it has to be the only thing,” he says. “I don’t think it can be a gray line. Either you want it and there’s nothing else or it’s not going to happen.”

For instance, Kip was offered a sales position with an enticing salary, but it required working six days a week, leaving no time for creating music. “You come to the crossroads: do you really want this? Are you willing to sacrifice everything, including relationships? I can’t tell you how many relationships have been doomed from the get-go because of this.

“It only took me a few minutes to decline it. It’s such a risk and it’s an alone feeling – you feel like you’re on an island by yourself – but it’s worth every single minute. Had I taken that job, I wouldn’t be sitting here today.”