Teddy Robb’s Hard Work Pays Off With Debut Single ‘Really Shouldn’t Drink Around You’

It's time to give up your back-up plans and follow your dreams!

Teddy Robb’s Hard Work Pays Off With Debut Single ‘Really Shouldn’t Drink Around You’
Teddy Robb; Photo credit: Matt Berinato

Singer/songwriter Teddy Robb has released his first official single, “Really Shouldn’t Drink Around You,” to radio. The song, penned by Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne and Trevor Rosen, is about the danger of falling for a friend, and Robb immediately loved the tune.

“Honestly, as soon as I heard the line ‘gin and platonic’ I’m like, ‘Oh, I know I love this,’” Robb says in an interview with Sounds Like Nashville. “I go back to one of the original reasons I started loving country, and why I still love country, is that the lyric and the storytelling of country music is just different than every other genre. ‘Really Shouldn’t Drink Around You’ is another one of those songs that tells a story.”

Robb fell in love with the story songs of country music during his teenage years outside Akron, Ohio. He spent most of his upbringing on the water with his dad or at his mom’s house playing in the woods. Robb was drawn to country music because the artists sang songs about the kind of life he lived. Songs like Kenny Chesney’s “Summertime” and Tim McGraw’s “Red Ragtop” were important to him, but everything changed when he heard George Strait’s “Troubadour.”

“It was one of the first times I’d ever had to pull my car over to the side of the road because I was just like, ‘What is this song trying to tell me?’” Robb says. “It was really a song that stopped me in my tracks.”

In addition to enjoying the outdoors, Robb grew up playing sports, and even played football during his time at Kent State University. As a Business major, Robb was preparing for entrance into the 9-to-5 world, but it was during college that he found a second passion in life: music. He started seriously singing around age 21, and it wasn’t long before he made the spur-of-the-moment decision to take a leap and move to Nashville.

“I woke up one morning and it just kind of hit me that I needed to move to Nashville that day,” Robb says. “I just packed my bags up and called my parents, like, ‘Hey, I’m headed down to Nashville.’ I literally just moved down there, and the second day I was there I got hired to play music on broadway.”

Robb spent around five years honing his sound in Nashville and Colorado before signing his record deal with Monument Records. Now, he says having an official song released to radio “feels like a dream,” and it’s a dream that all started when he threw away his back-up plan.

“I think everything changed for me when I got rid of back-up plans, honestly,” he says. “I would advise, if someone wants to be an artist with all their heart, you’ve gotta get rid of the back-up plans. But of course there were doubts. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any doubts that I’d get a record deal. . . .There’s a lot of fear that goes into it, but you just gotta keep going. I really believed at the same time that I could do it.”

Fans can find Robb playing shows this summer and fall, including Dierks Bentley’s Seven Peaks Festival in Buena Vista, CO on Aug. 31.