Trent Harmon’s Mississippi Upbringing Inspired his Love for Country Music

In this SLN exclusive, Trent Harmon opens about his love for country music and reveals what fans can expect from his debut album. 

Written by Lauren Laffer
Trent Harmon’s Mississippi Upbringing Inspired his Love for Country Music
Trent Harmon; Photo by David McClister

It wasn’t that long ago that the world said farewell to FOX’s iconic show American Idol by naming Trent Harmon the final season’s winner. But Harmon has been working on his craft as an artist long before his time on Idol.

“I grew up on a farm. I always had headphones in my ears, as an escape,” Harmon told Sounds Like Nashville recently. “Not that I didn’t want to be on the farm, but it was very monotonous, just riding a tractor all day. I put my headphones in my ears and it was like I was on stage singing those songs, whatever they were. That carried over into wanting to be on the stage, singing those songs.”

Harmon would spend his days on his family farm in northern Mississippi listening to whatever music he could get his hands on.

“I made a point to not get caught up in only listening to a few artists. I would literally find anything I could and I would listen to it and I would never change the key of it. I would try to sing it in the original key that I heard it in,” he explained. “If it was Whitney Houston, we’re singing Whitney Houston in her key. If it was Elvis, we’re singing Elvis in that key. I really didn’t listen to a lot of stuff and then my playlists would get narrower and narrower as I figured out what I liked to listen to.”

Because of his wide variety of musical tastes, Harmon played an assortment of songs during his time on the competition show. But his heart remained in country music as he announced a forthcoming “country-soul” album from his new record deal, Big Machine Label Group.

“Country was what I would always gig when I was at home because I felt most comfortable singing that,” said Harmon. “I realized at an early age, if I’m going to do straight up country, I got to be the best. I realized you can’t be the best, it depends on who you ask. Like, knock on ten doors, you’ll get ten different answers to a survey. I was like, ‘All right, let’s do something different.’ Let’s stay country because you listen to me talk, I can’t be a rapper. I’m not a rapper. I can’t … I was going to say I can’t sing opera music but I did opera all through college but I didn’t enjoy it. I enjoy country because I like talking and I like telling stories. Country tells the best stories.”

Harmon is busy working on his stories by spending endless hours songwriting. There’s no pressure to get an album out right away, so he’s taking his time to get it right.

“We’re not piecemealing the album together, we’re taking our time, we’re writing. It’s going to be, not a slow process, but a thought out process. You’re going to be able to tell, they took time with that, that’s a good song. As opposed to eight filler tracks and four okay songs.”

The first of the album’s songs is Harmon’s lead single, “There’s A Girl,” a song he co-wrote with Jimmy Robbins and Laura Veltz.

“I had a story. I wanted to write a sad song because I had this idea of this particular relationship that I had chased all over and it didn’t work out. It wasn’t supposed to work out but I didn’t know that at the time and I was all upset about it and I wanted to write a song about it. I was like, that was a really big chapter of life,” he said of the track. “I hadn’t intended to write a sad song, we sat down to write a sad song. I was like, ‘I’m not sad anymore, I’m happy right now. Let’s take this and flip it and write a happy song about this.’ It was pretty much that simple. We had it tracked and what you hear on the radio is the demo that we recorded that day that we wrote it.”

Harmon will continue to write for his debut album on BMLG. In the meantime, fans can listen to “There’s A Girl” on Spotify and keep up with him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.