Noah Smith seems genuinely surprised that his acclaimed six-year solo journey — a self-titled EP, Cincinnati Entertainment Award nominations in 2014, a CEA win in 2017 and his 2018 debut Country/Americana full-length, Long Cut — has occurred in relatively short order.
“Really?” says the Brown County native/resident when considering the brief timeline. “Honestly, it doesn’t feel like it. When I met my mandolin player, Michael Moeller, he’d never been in a band. I have to watch myself to not put the weight from years before on what we’ve done together because it feels like a long time.”
Smith obviously views time through a somewhat obscured lens, more so recently. He and his wife welcomed their third son in late July, but complications and tests kept them in the hospital for nine days. Surgery is imminent, but their newborn baby is healthy despite his challenges.
“He’s good; that’s the biggest thing,” Smith says. “It was just not knowing. It’s the first time we’ve been through ‘What’s wrong with our baby?’ He’s going to have surgery in a couple of months but it shouldn’t be major. In the world of things happening to a newborn, it wasn’t a huge deal, it was just going through it.”
Smith’s career has similarly arced; the early slog facilitated subsequent next-level conclusions. Smith’s high school/college AltRock band The Gambling District fueled his Rock-Star-at-19 ambitions, and while his goal wasn’t unrealistic — he was a University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music graduate and savvy songwriter — there was more to the equation.
“This guy roasted me for my birthday and one of his jokes was, ‘Some of us have a past, Noah has The Gambling District,’ ” Smith says with a laugh. “That was the band. As a kid, all I wanted was to see our name in CityBeat and have a van and a trailer. When that happened, it was like, ‘Now what do we do?’ ”
Growing up, Smith’s parents’ encouraged his diverse musical tastes in Country, Folk and Rock, which bled into his burgeoning songwriting skills. In college, The Gambling District released demos, toured regionally and got noticed, but the chainsaws they were juggling eventually got away from them.
“We put out a record in ’07 and broke up the following year,” Smith says. “I toured on that name for a long time and it was just me. I played (Corryville club) The Mad Frog once a month for like three years. My songwriting kept veering toward Folk/Americana and I think some of the Country storytelling naturally came out of it.”
One thing Smith accomplished by 20 was fatherhood; his oldest son arrived while he was still at UC and in the band. He wasn’t in a settling down mood at the moment.
“Our son was 4 before my wife and I got married. That’ll tell you what kind of guy I was being,” Smith says. “I drank as much as you could without being an alcoholic and I was a womanizer, if I’m honest. But through that, my identity shifted. I was like, ‘Life isn’t about music, life is about life and music is a part of it.’ That changed everything. I feel like it slowed everything down but I remind myself that’s where God has me right now.”
After years of exploring different aspects of his beloved songwriting process, Smith dropped the band persona in 2012 to perform under his own name. He began making regular visits to Nashville where he made friends and connections.
“I wrote ‘Let the Clutch Out’ as a writing exercise,” Smith says of his early solo single. “I have publishing companies I write through, but I’m not signed. I sent (‘Clutch’ to a publisher) and for the first time I heard, ‘We’re going to put this song on hold.’ It was for Jason Aldean, like three records ago. They never cut it, but through a different relationship, I worked with his band. That really opened my eyes. I could do what I really love to do and make money.”
Smith’s 2014 EP featured musicians who’d played with Aldean, Dwight Yoakam and Brooks & Dunn, generating positive critical buzz and earning Smith several CEA nominations. He concentrated on songwriting to a greater extent, and pursued co-writing collaborations, standard practice in Nashville and educational growth for Smith.
“I’ve learned there are better songwriters out there,” Smith says. “I love writing with people who make me better. People are like, ‘I’m an artist, I need to say what I need to say.’ I am too, but I also want to make the best piece of art, and maybe that involves somebody else.”
For Long Cut, Smith opted to use his touring band (Moeller, John McGuire, Drew Phillips and Joe “Rico” Klein) in the studio, resulting in a spark and an immediacy that may have been muted on the EP, a testament to the chemistry between the players.
“I’ve always loved being part of a band,” he says. “We went back to the garage and made this record, that’s what was cool about it. The concept of the record is there are a lot of road references. We spent a lot of time traveling, getting to know each other and building relationships.”
Smith recently brought the popular Nashville “songwriting round” concept to Cincinnati with the first of his “Crooner Circus” events, where a trio of songwriters tell stories and share songs in an intimate setting. It’s audience entertainment but, just like Nashville’s rounds, Smith’s Circus has opened doors for creative opportunities.
“People joke, ‘When I leave I want to go home and write,’ ” Smith says of the Circus shows, which has drawn a few Cincinnati music heavyweights. “Ryan Malott (of 500 Miles to Memphis) is playing the next one, and Dallas Moore. He’s been killing it and he’s so busy, but he was like, ‘I’m in. Let’s do it.’ I know those nights have opened some people’s eyes, like, ‘I would never go to this guy’s show, but wow, he just said that.’ ”
Smith and his band are taking breathers to pursue outside projects. Smith is performing solo house concerts to build up funds for their next album. Several local and regional artists have cut his songs, and he continues to seek a publishing deal — which entails weekly trips to Nashville to maintain his connections there — that could eliminate the need for freelance work. But he doesn’t mind working while he plays.
“I call myself a ‘performing songwriter,’ probably because I saw it in somebody’s bio when I was younger,” Smith says. “Performing is the bread and butter; writing happens inside and outside of that. I could play guitar Wednesday through Saturday and make a good living, but that’s not what I’ve believed in. I’d rather dig ditches and then do what I love to do. Guys are like, ‘Man, I want to quit my job and get a record deal.’ If you hate your job, you should just quit anyway. But you shouldn’t want to succeed in music in spite of your job.”
Noah Smith’s next “Crooner Circus” show is Thursday (Aug. 23) at MOTR Pub. For more info, visit noahsmithmusic.com.
