Rising Stars: Meet Brennan Burns of Glenview

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brennan Burns.

Hi Brennan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
The story of how I got into the music business starts with my lifelong passion for music. It has always been my strong and consistent love, no matter the season of my life. Music has always made more sense to me than just about everything else. Making a living and starting a business with music didn’t become an attainable reality until I was around 19. A little background on myself, I was born in Arkansas, my father was born and raised there, and my mother was born and raised in southern Missouri. Before 3rd grade, my family moved around and lived in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Indiana, eventually settling outside of Boston, MA. Growing up around hard-working blue and white-collar people. Music was never even considered a legitimate career path; I didn’t meet a “professional” musician until I was in my early twenties. I started going to concerts with my mom at a very young age, which eventually became one of my favorite things to do. I loved everything about them, the music, the atmosphere, the sound and feeling of thousands of people singing their favorite songs. Out of high school, I attended Belmont University here in Nashville. I spent my first year studying the music business, thinking it would be the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I won’t go into detail. All you need to know is I knew I wanted to transfer schools by my 3rd month there, and at the end of the freshman spring semester, I transferred to Clemson University in South Carolina. My time at Clemson is where I fell in love with playing live music. Until then, I had only played for smaller restaurants and gatherings, nothing that blew my mind. Once I started playing for college bars and fraternity parties, my outlook changed towards playing live shows. Although these weren’t huge shows, for the first time, I was seeing crowds of people reacting and having a great time to the music I played, and once I found out I could entertain a rowdy college crowd, all I wanted to do was learn how to get better at it. On top of that, I was getting paid, making way more money than I ever had to own my landscaping business throughout high school. When I realized I was getting paid to do what I love to do, drinking for free and having a great time doing it, all I wanted to do was figure out how I could keep doing it. The only problem was that focusing on music took a toll on my academics all the time. The combination of my drive to build a music career and bad academics eventually led to my dropping out of school in the winter of 2017. This was unheard of for the people in my life. To them, there was no viable reason to drop out of college, let alone pursue a music career. I was told I was crazy and that nobody makes it in that industry, but it didn’t matter. I knew I would do this even if I were the only one on my side. The only problem was I didn’t know how. In the early spring of 2018, I lost one of my biggest musical influences and important people in my life, my Grandpa; he was a bluegrass fiddle player but never did it more than a hobby. As I said, music was never a realistic career path. I told myself within a year. I would do something that showed everyone that what I was doing was real and that this was not a joke. In May of 2018, after playing every show possible around that college town, I met a musician/booking agent out of Atlanta, GA, named Francisco Vidal. He heard me play at the same bar id played hundreds of times and told me if I ever wanted to book shows in ATL, he was the dude. That summer, I went back to Boston and booked as many shows as possible. By the end of the summer, I was playing around 3-4 shows a week, even up to 8 at one point. Purely because that’s what I wanted to do. I argued with my parents to let me move back to Clemson since I would be able to pay my bills playing shows in Clemson and ATL even though I was not in school. For that whole year, I spent two weekends in Clemson and two weekends in ATL each month, just playing shows and writing music all I could. My first big career milestone came at the end of that year. When I had the privilege of recording my song “Grandpa’s Fiddle” (a song I had written for my Grandpa and played at his funeral) with John Driskell Hopkins. The bassist and founding member of The Zac Brown Band. I never thought I would ever have the chance to work with somebody I had listened to and saw in concert growing up, let alone somebody who was just about as successful in the music industry. At the end of the year, I moved to ATL, where I started to build my business. On average, I played 3-4 shows a week for about two years until COVID hit. During those years, I established myself as an LLC and expanded my territory into Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, North Carolina, and eventually Tennessee. In June 2020, I moved to Nashville and lived in my family’s RV. I knew the only way to continue to grow my business was to be where the top people in country music were. Returning to Nashville after leaving with such a bad taste in my mouth years before was worrisome. I re-enrolled at Clemson University to finish my business degree online to understand better how to manage and grow my music business. Since I had moved around so much in my life and made a living being a musician, I have always not been from where I lived and was the only person I or people around me knew that made a living playing music. The funny thing is, in Nashville, pretty much every third person you meet here is not from here but a musician, which made me feel at home almost immediately. I lived in the RV in Nashville for a year and a half. I completed school and graduated and recorded new music produced by Michael Rinne, Miranda Lambert’s bassist, with the help of some of the top musicians in the industry. They have played songs I have listened to on the radio for years. Most of my weekends are on the road performing across the country, while my weekdays are spent in Nashville writing songs, networking, and hanging out with my dog Gunner. It has been a crazy ride, and although looking back on all that’s happened, it makes sense to me now that there was a reason for all that has happened and what I have done to build my career. I know a lot of things sure didn’t feel like they were supposed to happen when they occurred.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
In my experience, one thing that has proven itself repeatedly is that when your life needs to change for the better, the events necessary to grow are not fun or enjoyable. Typically these pivotal change points are accompanied by some of the hardest things I have faced, but looking back on them reveals that they led me in the direction I needed to go. The road I have traveled to get to where I am has not been smooth, but it has brought me places and let me do things I never imagined I would do. I am truly blessed for that, and it also makes the bumps in the road worth it. Although playing music is technically my job, I look at what I do more as a vocation. What I mean by that is that I wholeheartedly believe throughout every inch of my soul that being a musician, artist, and performer is what put me on this earth to do. Music has proven itself to me time and time again that I am supposed to pursue this path even through hardships. Because of this, anything good or bad that happens to me is all a part of the journey. Although it is not the easiest pursuit, consciously deciding and understanding that music is what I will do no matter what makes it much easier to keep getting up and moving forward even when I get knocked down. One of the first challenges is obviously how I can make enough money doing this to survive. It was a slow transition into making music a full-time job. To do this, sometimes, I would have to get a second job to make my bills. Although I never wanted to take a second job, they were always a great source of inspiration to keep working harder to find more ways to make money in music. Another struggle I faced in the beginning, was how to mentally manage what people around me, especially those close to me, had to say about what I was doing. To be up on stage in front of a crowded night after night, you have to grow a bit of thick skin, not that people are constantly trying to cut you down, but there will always be those with something to say. Any form of art is heavily based on opinion. What makes certain art great is heavily weighted by what people think. In the beginning, when you don’t have much to show for the work you have put into your dream, it can be very disheartening to have people ask you why you do this or do you think you can survive doing this. Especially when it comes from loved ones, although it may come from a place of love, the concerns of pursuing something that many believe is near impossible to succeed in can come off as criticizing or hurtful. This can lead to self-doubt, but luckily for me, in the beginning, I didn’t know a single other people who pursued music, making it much easier to disregard what anybody might say because they didn’t do what I do. Another challenge is the sacrifices you have to make to operate your business. In my case, I work on weekends when everyone else is off of work, so my schedule rarely lines up with plans.

Along with that, you must be willing to do or go whatever and wherever necessary to continue growing. I have moved more times than I would like, but it has gotten me to where I am. The challenge to keep challenging yourself is persistent throughout any stage of my journey, and I am sure it will always be. To grow and improve, I had to be critical of myself about what I put my time towards. My few years in ATL were like this, I was making great money playing as many gigs as I wanted, living with my girlfriend at the time splitting rent, but it wasn’t going anywhere; it was just the same level of work over and over. In the first week of March 2020, I had a girlfriend, an apartment, and a schedule full of shows booked three months out. In the second week of March 2020, I was single, moved back in with my parents, had no work or job for who knew how long, and the lockdown started. We all were affected by COVID, but that was a shitty period for me.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Music is my art form, specifically country music, but I respect and play all styles. I do believe I am not your typical artist. As somebody who has lived all over the country, I think my songs and playing style relate to many people, not just those interested in the country genre. I was solely a guitarist for several years before one day in high school when I woke up with a fairly deep voice. The combination of considering myself a guitarist and a fairly unique singer helps me stand apart from others. This has also allowed me to hold a crowd. And put on a show with the energy of a full band, but only as a solo act. I am proud that bars and venues around the country continue to book me in slots that could be for full bands because they have seen how crowds react to my solo show. In a world that continuously tries to hide behind some facade, there are no lies, tricks, or distracting production in my solo act. It is me and an acoustic guitar. What you hear and see is what’s happening. that is how I have made most of my living during my career. I try to be as honest and genuine as I can be. I play with a band, but I don’t think my full band shows have yet set me apart from other full bands as much as my solo act sets me apart from other solo acts. I am proud of the music I have written and composed and how far I have come as a writer, artist, and performer. I am not satisfied with where I am, which is why I will always practice and continue to be the best I can be. I truly care about the art of music and musicianship and not only try to represent that in what I do, but I also feel I am here to protect real music by being an example of somebody who has devoted their life to the craft. I am also proud of what the music and performances I have done have given to people. If I can make someone happier or give them a better time than what they thought they were going to have because they were watching or listening to my music, then I have done my job

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting?
Anybody who is an artist or creator did not just one day decide to make a great piece of work. It takes a long time to hone in on skill, and by no means am I saying my creations are the work of greatness, but they have been good enough for me to make a living. As you progress, it is hard to ignore when people start to notice and enjoy what you have done or created. Even in the smallest instances, these reassurances can keep a beginning artist going. I love when people have a great time at my shows. I get to make people happier for my job; it’s an incredible feeling and privilege. Most occupations cannot say the same.

Music is a powerful force meant to be enjoyed, and I would never expect anyone to take it to the extremes that I have, especially if that means losing my love for music. Something I have heard throughout my career, which is a compliment and am always appreciative of, goes along the lines of “You have a God-given talent” or whatever. It does mean a lot to me, but In my mind, a part of me sees this as almost discrediting the number of hours, days, months, and years I have spent practicing and learning to improve myself. God didn’t spend thousands of hours practicing guitar and vocals. That was only me; he provided the desire to make me want to do it. I am truly blessed that I was given something (music) that I love so much and am so passionate about that it gave me the drive to pursue and devote my life to it. I have found that many people don’t have that one thing in their life, which is not a bad thing by any means, but without that burning passion for something, it is hard to pursue a path that most see as unlikely for success. In saying that, my first piece of advice, if you have a passion or dream you want to pursue, would be to ask yourself if this is what you want to devote your life to, as well as, is it worth what you will have to do to get to where I want to be? You have to make your passion into who you are because, ultimately, it will become your identity. The next advice I would give is to find what makes you, you. Be thankful for what makes you different from others and find ways to use that to your advantage. The greatest artists are the greatest because there is only one of them; nobody else is you, so figure out how to make the best out of yourself. This leads to my next advice, if being you as an individual is the best way to set you apart from the rest, then the only person you need to compare yourself to is your past self and your advancement. Comparing yourself to others in your field will only lead to frustration and disappointment; instead, try to learn how to get to the place you want to be. If you know this is what you want to do, the next step is to get better at it. It seems obvious, but to build a business as an artist, you have to learn, practice, and hone any skills needed to continue to move in a positive direction. Not only does this allow you to own and feel confident in what you do, but if you don’t strive to improve your skillset persistently, you cannot expect to accomplish bigger things. Another piece of advice, learn how to lose. Music is an opinionated business, not everybody is going to love you, and you are going to get told no exponentially more times than yes, especially in the beginning. If you can manage your expectations of success, then any no’s you get will only make you want to work harder, making the yes’s that much better.

Also, learning how to take constructive criticism and use it to improve yourself, being honest with yourself about what you need to improve, and learning from more experienced people in the field are the quickest ways to improve. You’ll have to be patient; career longevity is built from the things that take the longest to form. If your passion is for music and you find yourself in doubt and need a quick reminder of the power that music holds and what it does for people, go to your local nursing home to play a short set for the old folks, even those in hospice, they are always looking for entertainment. Specifically, in what I’ve experienced, if you sing them with amazing grace. It is impossible to ignore the intense feeling in the room as people in their last days of living. Some of them can’t even remember their name and sing along to every word, even in their state. You talk about chills. Music is a powerful and necessary part of human nature and one of the few things that still unite people instead of dividing them. Lastly, be genuine and nice; nobody likes working with assholes.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brennanburnsmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brennanburnsmusic/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrennanBurnsMusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrZSa3-knhC-W3pD1e5nVtg
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0huN4Hg9H9ti6DSO2vzamG?si=vS9RA4DnTOKi49pPxFVB2A

Image Credits
Main profile picture – Whale Tale Media 2 Pictures in the studio – Blu Sanders Me singing to the crowd with no guitar – Trey Bonner