Drew Ryder Smith Returns with THE DEEP END Album

After more than a decade spent writing songs for other artists, singer-songwriter Drew Ryder Smith returns fully to his own with The Deep End, his deeply personal new album, available everywhere today.

Smith first came to Nashville to pursue a career as an artist, sharing stages with Lady A, Don Williams and Lee Brice before finding success behind the scenes as a songwriter. Merle Haggard recorded one of his songs, Randy Houser cut another, and what began as a detour became years spent writing for other voices. The desire to make music of his own, however, never went away.

'You know how this industry is,' Smith says. 'If one thing is working, it's very tempting to latch on to that and go, 'Okay, if that's going to put a pool in the backyard, then that's what I need to be doing.' And then one year turned into two, and then turned into ten, and I hadn't put anything out as an artist, but the yearning was still there.'

That unfinished business ultimately became The Deep End, a collection of songs Smith knew he needed to sing himself.

'After years of writing songs for other people, I realized there was so much more that I needed to say myself,' Smith says. 'If I were on my deathbed without having put this record out, it would break my heart. I'd feel like there was a lot of unfinished business.'

Produced by Grammy-winning producer Glenn A. Tabor III, The Deep End pairs the intimacy of Smith's writing with an ambitious musical palette while preserving the unpolished, lived-in quality he wanted for the record. The album brings together an accomplished group of musicians and collaborators, with recording stretching from the U.S. to London and orchestral and choral elements recorded at Abbey Road.

Among the album's most notable collaborations is 'Textile Town,' featuring Steve Earle. Inspired by Smith's drive through a once-thriving South Carolina textile community and generations of his own family's history as factory workers, the song looks beyond abandoned buildings to the people whose lives were built around the mills. Smith developed the song with co-writer Jason Jones, and later worked up the courage to ask Earle, whose music he had listened to since childhood, to join him on the track.

Before Smith could even finish asking, Earle agreed.

'I was four years old when Copperhead Road came out,' Smith says. 'Steve's music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. To have him become part of this song and help tell this story means the world to me.'

The album also features bluegrass icon Rhonda Vincent on 'Lie with Me,' bringing one of the genre's most celebrated voices to another of the record's standout tracks.

While those collaborations add considerable star power, The Deep End remains unmistakably Smith's story.

On 'Bloodline,' Smith turns his attention to the family traits and histories that travel from one generation to the next, examining both what we inherit and what we choose to carry forward. Family runs even deeper through the architecture of the album itself. In the spaces between songs, Smith has woven pieces of his own life into the record, using snippets of his father preaching alongside old voicemails from his grandfather, grandmother and aunt. Some of those family members have since passed away, giving the recordings an added significance and allowing their voices to become part of the album itself. The fragments serve as small breadcrumbs for listeners, offering glimpses into the family, history and experiences behind the songs.

Elsewhere, 'Memory' turns a familiar country theme on its head by telling the story from the perspective of the memory itself, a relentless presence promising it won't be outrun or forgotten. One of the few songs Smith has written entirely on his own across a songwriting career spanning more than 15 years, the track was born after a publisher called him a 'one-trick pony.' Smith went home, picked up a resonator guitar because, as he puts it, 'it sounded angry,' and wrote the song that became one of The Deep End's rowdiest moments. 'Leave Somebody', meanwhile, turns a distinctly modern heartbreak into classic country songwriting. Smith wrote the latter with Jason Jones and Jason Eustice. Rather than asking why someone leaves, the song asks something less common: how they leave.

'One of my co-writers and I had both recently experienced being ghosted after serious relationships,' Smith says. 'In both cases, there wasn't a conversation, a reason or even a goodbye. We realized we weren't asking for someone to stay; we were just asking for some kind of closure. That's where the song came from.'

Among the album's most intimate moments is 'Jolyn,' named for Smith's partner and written unexpectedly during a family vacation. 'Do It Again' takes a very different approach, expanding the album's sonic scope with orchestral and choral arrangements recorded at Abbey Road. Smith wanted the choir to move between opposing emotional extremes, sounding almost angelic in one moment and darker and more unsettling in the next.

Taken together, the songs on The Deep End trace a life through family, love, heartbreak, hometowns and the people who leave their mark along the way. Smith's own history runs through it all, sometimes in the songs themselves and sometimes quite literally in the voices tucked between them.

The Deep End is available now on all digital streaming platforms.

For more information, music and upcoming shows, visit www.drewrydersmith.com.

Upcoming Tour Dates

October 29 — New York, NY — Lucinda's — Free Show; RSVP Here

November 6 — Asheville, NC — The Grey Eagle — Get Tickets

November 12 — Charlotte, NC — GAT3 Studio Showcase (Private Album Release Party)

November 16 — Knoxville, TN — WDVX Blue Plate Special (Live Radio Performance)

November 17 — Nashville, TN — City Winery — Get Tickets

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