Garrett Adair

Biography

What does every five-year-old boy want to be when he grows up? It’s a short list at that age. Your options are fire fighter, police officer, astronaut, professional athlete, or rockstar. I’m sorry, but no other occupations exist.

I opted for rockstar. I told my mom I wanted to learn how to play guitar, so we went down to Toys-R-Us and bought a First Act guitar, which I think at the time cost a whopping $50. I was convinced I was going to be the next Van Halen! Little did I know playing “Eruption” on a cheap guitar was a little harder than I thought.

Eight years and countless lessons and recitals later, I witnessed something that would change my perspective on guitar, writing music, and performing forever.

I was at my buddy’s house, and his dad turned on a video of John Mayer’s concert “Where The Light Is.” The first song that played was “Neon” and from that point on, I knew I wanted to do that.

My freshman year of high school I wrote my first song. I had a massive crush on a girl from a different school (why do us guys always fall for the girls from the other schools?), and she wore a purple dress to homecoming that year. Unfortunately, I wasn’t her date--I wasn’t even remotely on her radar. But I had a solution.

What if I wrote her a song? She’d have to fall in love with me then! I was a super deep, intellectual teenager, so naturally I titled the song “Purple Dress.” I was proud of the song (and my plan to serenade her!), but I was so terrified of rejection that I never played it for her. I have no idea what that girl is up to nowadays, but I have her to thank for the first song in hundreds I’ve written over the years and, bringing me, ultimately, to you reading this now.

There’s a moment in every kid's life where they go from doing what they WANT to doing what they feel they HAVE to do. I was the same. I got accepted into college and for the next 10 years I went down the rabbit hole of pursuing the things I thought I was supposed to do rather than what I actually wanted to.

I went to college, got good grades, and even ran for student government. I filled my schedule with internships, got the right job, and made my family proud, all while putting music on the backburner because I thought it wasn’t part of what I was supposed to do.

I started a company with my roommate and best friend, which we still run to this day. The first few years were successful and fulfilling, but also extremely hard and lonely. I would work all day, come home to an empty apartment, and… write songs.

When 2020 came around, the world changed overnight, and I decided it was time for me to finally start sharing my music. But with the world shut down because of the pandemic, I couldn’t find anywhere to play live. That fall, a family friend finally agreed to let me play at his Italian restaurant. I took what I could get!

That first show was a complete train wreck. My voice was flat and my guitar playing took me back to chugging away on that $50 First Act acoustic I had as a kid. But I promised myself that I would play12 shows in 2020 and wasn’t going to stop until I did.

A few months later when I felt like I had overstayed my welcome at the Italian restaurant, I went on the hunt for a new place to perform. After knocking on doors of almost a dozen venues in the suburbs of Dallas, I finally got a “yes!” And this is when I fell hard for performing.

One night, I was playing unplugged and talking to an older couple during a break between sets. The gentleman asked if I knew any older songs…some classics. So, I grabbed my guitar and played “Yesterday” by The Beatles. By the time I got to the chorus he was crying while holding onto his wife. I pushed through the song without crying myself, and when I finished, he said I took him right back to the first time he’d heard that song in the 60s. That’s when it hit me: I wanted people to have that type of connection with ALL my songs.

In early 2021, I took a trip to Nashville to record a few of my songs. When I arrived, a friend wanted to introduce me to a producer buddy of his. That producer and I ended up hitting it off and recorded four songs together. Within a few months, my music was making the industry rounds, but I knew (and all the industry people were telling me) I had more work to do. I couldn’t get that work done if I was only coming to Nashville on the weekends. It was time for a big decision: I either put everything into my music or it becomes a hobby. It was now or never.

Within 6 weeks I was packed up and ready to move. I brought two guitars, three boxes of clothing, and a lot of hope that it would be enough to make it in Music City.

The next few months were a blur. My co-writer and I did nothing but focus on writing the best music we could.

Then came TikTok.

Throughout this whole process, I would share my new songs with my family. In early 2022, my sister held a long-overdue reception for her 2020 mid-pandemic wedding, and she surprised me by using my song “See The World” for her first dance with her husband. A friend recorded my reaction and uploaded a few seconds of the video to TikTok. Five million views later, I felt like the chance I had taken on myself just might pay off.

It’s now May of 2022 and I am about to release my debut single, “See the World.”

So, what would I tell five-year-old Garrett?

Writing songs isn’t the most rational thing you could do with your life but trust me…20 years later it’s still going to be the only thing you want to do. Keep practicing those scales, strumming those chords, and writing those songs because one day it will lead you to something so much bigger.

Sincerely,

Older Garrett