Rising Stars: Meet Graycie York

Today we’d like to introduce you to Graycie York.

Graycie, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started playing guitar when I was around 12 or 13 and fell in love with it. I’ve been singing since I could talk & have always loved music. There are home videos of me singing old country songs. It’s always been my dream to be a singer. The songwriting aspect of it came into play after I wrote my first single ‘Patsy Kind of Night’ because prior to writing that, I didn’t believe in my songwriting ability. That song changed everything for me & made me realize how much I loved songwriting and from there I didn’t stop! I started playing open mics and meeting other artists who helped guide me in the right direction & one of those artists was Tanner Usrey!

Him & I quickly formed a brother/sister bond that I’m so grateful for. He helped me a lot & gave me a lot of super helpful advice & still does! I met my band and started playing as much as I could. anywhere I could. I put out an EP in 2020 (I know what a fantastic year to start my career haha) but it did better than I could have ever expected & then I released a female version of the song Texas Rain & that changed EVERYTHING for me. It hit over a million streams in a year on Spotify which is insane. That opened up a lot of doors for me and really changed my life in a lot of ways. Now I’m still playing as much as I can & I’ve opened for some of my idols and some legends and it still feels like a dream.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh gosh no! Haha. It seemed a little too easy in the beginning so I knew something was bound to go south soon. I had trouble with band members and that was my first kind of rocky experience with the music scene. Luckily it didn’t last long and I now have a fantastic band around me.

I feel like a lot of people think that being an artist is easy and all you do is go and sing but there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes that no one ever sees that is really tough. When you’re trying to book shows and figure out what you want to do or how to financially do it, it can be really stressful. I’ve had many nights (more recently) where it has been hard. There’s a lot of struggle but it’s all so worth it. So no, it hasn’t been smooth but I wouldn’t ever change any of it.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I think I’m most proud of who I’ve become throughout this whole process. It’s so easy to become someone you’re not and to be super egotistical after having some success but thankfully I have the people around me to help keep my head on straight & keep me grounded. There have definitely been some moments where I lost sight of what really mattered but snapped back into reality really quickly when I realized how fast I could lose it.

I think I’m most humbled by the fact that people choose to listen to my music & they like what I’ve written so much to continue to listen to it. Like I said previously, this is all I’ve ever wanted to do so now that is becoming my reality, I’m so grateful.

Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I think I’ve always been a safe risk taker but I’m getting riskier as I go on. I think if you don’t take risks, you’ll never know. So just go for it. The worst that could happen is it doesn’t work out or they say no. And if that happens, just move on to the next & figure out what actually works!

Taking risks can be so rewarding. I took a risk by releasing a super popular song and I knew some people would be against it because they love the original version so much but it turned out to be one of the best moves for my career.

Yes, some people definitely have some words for it but more times than not, they like it! I think as a musician you have to take risks and yes, they are scary as hell but like I said they can be so rewarding.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.graycieyork.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/graycieyork
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/graycieyorkmusic?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/gyorkmusic

Image Credits
Steven Contreras (@Scubashots), Travis Perkins (@travperk_photo), and Manny Lopez (@479.fsn)