Zach Top stayed scarce intentionally when he first moved to Nashville.
The rising country star that’s famously helped revive the country sound of yesteryear has had a whirlwind couple of years in Music City. He was originally form Sunnyside, Washington, and it was there that he found his neotraditional sound. When he moved to Nashville in 2021, he was already started to get some buzz online and in industry circles.
Top explained in a recent episode of the Zach Sang Show that his good friend and frequent collaborator, Carson Chamberlain, advised him to not play too many shows when he made the move to Nashville… the opposite of the advice you generally hear in Music City. Ask most artists or songwriters what to do and they’ll tell you to write with everyone, play any gig you get… any opportunity you have is one where you can potentially grown your fanbase.
But Chamberlain advised the opposite:
“The way he presented it to me – and looking back on it, it was super accurate – was that it can be easy to lose any mystique you have. For me, I was starting to have a little bit of buzz on social media, but I was halfway across the country.
And nobody knew where I was or really who I was. Then I moved to Nashville, and Carson was like, ‘You need to keep Nashville at arm’s length just a little bit.’ Play hard to get, I guess.”
Evidently, that worked out swimmingly for Zach Top.
Now that he looks back on that advice, he credits a lot of his success to that approach. Country music fans, especially in the Nashville area, wanted to see Top live… and that opportunity didn’t present itself all that often. He kept his live performances in Music City to a minimum, and there’s good reason for that:
“The way Nashville works, there’s so much going on. There’s something going on every afternoon and night of the week. So if you start taking every gig you can get, like ‘Layla’s on Tuesday evenings, then play this writers round on Wednesday nights, then Thursday over at Robert’s.’
When you are so accessible, people go see you and the first time it’s, ‘Holy cow, what was that? That was really cool.’
Then you start… it’s like the town almost becomes desensitized to you. Whatever was kind of special and cool (turns into), ‘Oh yeah, he’s just one of the whoever is playing shows or writers rounds.’ There’s definitely a lot of people that it’s worked for. But looking back, I think it was really strong advice.”
If you think about it, that’s just good business.
Perhaps risky business, but it’s simple supply and demand really. When there’s a surplus, there’s less value. When there’s scarcity, things become more valuable. Zach Top found that the same is true for artists getting started, and he stuck to the advice that his good friend gave him. Although, I’d venture to guess that really only applies when you’re really, really good, and really experienced. Zach was both.
That mystique that Top mentioned kept fans intrigued, and his success story proves that sometimes wonder is worth more than knowing. Obviously, once fans see and hear Zach Top, there’s a slim chance that they wouldn’t want to hear more from him. But just in case… the “I Never Lie” singer kept his appearances sparse, and it certainly looks like it worked out for him.
You can hear more from Zach Top in the interview below:
