Today we’d like to introduce you to SOWARDS.
Hello SOWARDS, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
We began making music 5+ years ago with a couple of our friends, and actually found pretty good success through platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify! After a couple of labels displayed interest and decided to pass, we never saw the opportunity to pursue music full-time again. We decided to switch genres and begin from scratch with a different, more mainstream sound, but then 2020 happened. We were worn out. Everything we had worked toward was completely held up by the pandemic and we decided to take some time away from music.
After a little over a year, our now manager came to us with an excitement that reignited our fire to release music; only now it was on only our terms, with a more relaxed, alternative pop sound. We had songs ready to record, so we met with a few producers/engineers around Nashville. From those sessions, we were able to drop our first two singles here near the end of 2022! We seem to always be in the midst of working on at least one or two songs at a time, so people can expect new music pretty regularly.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely… NOT! We’ve run into issues with production at our shows, the timing of releases, and even times of creative differences. Luckily, we’ve always held great people around us to help alleviate some of those stressors, or they’ve dived straight into the mud with us.
Also, as we mentioned, we were kind of strung along in this opportunity to fully make music our profession only to find out after months that it wasn’t going to happen. We had also looked at selling past catalogs which never got pushed through, so there were challenges throughout those periods when we were already looking at the finish line.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
When we’re not doing music, we work together for our own company, CTVans.
During our year break from music, Chad and his wife traveled through a lot of the United States in a van with their dog. After returning to settle in Middle Tennessee, we decided we wanted to build out vans for people with that “travel itch” they’ve always wanted to scratch. We’ve found a lot of joy in creating ways for people to make memories, and we feel that’s hopefully what our music can do someday!
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Being music artists, AND entrepreneurs, we find that taking risks is one of the only ways we can feel satisfied. Although you hold liability, taking risks provides excitement that we’ve come to understand rests on our shoulders. It helps hold us accountable and we enjoy knowing that if something doesn’t work, it was because of poor planning, or poor execution.
That holds for both our day-to-day business and our music. One thing we’ve found so fulfilling this time around in our music is we get to experiment with different sounds, instruments, and structures within our songs. We got to a point where the music we were making was almost manufactured than being true to who we were as artists. This music now is leaning into what we’re fans of, and the styles/genres we listen to frequently. To anyone reading this, bet on yourself!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sowards-music.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearesowards/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wearesowards
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/wearesowards
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ8zJSRCyEkXuDRjFwwpYxQ
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@wearesowards
Image Credits
Daniel Alvarado, Nick Lieser, and Sean McHenry
