Joe Bryson

Even with all of his burgeoning success as an emerging pop/country artist and having overcome more health-related trials and tribulations than a 22-year-old should ever have to endure, Joe Bryson still views himself as “just a guy from Louisiana chasing a music dream”.

Born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, the Nashville based singer/songwriter’s musical aspirations weave an inspiring narrative - from a 10 year old mesmerized by a rockstar biopic which led to starting his first band, to releasing his first song “She Don’t Really Miss Me” midway through his senior year of high school which has to date amassed over 1.5 million Spotify streams.

The summer after he graduated, he was building momentum, having released “We Were Made for the Night” and “’Til the Sand Ran Out” which he wrote with songwriters whom “he had looked up to for years” on an initial trip he took to Nashville the previous summer. Shortly after, local promoters in the Louisiana area reached out and he started playing shows. This is when Joe first began showing symptoms of his thyroid cancer.

Joe’s symptoms continued during his first semester as a Music Business major at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and he was ultimately diagnosed with stage 3 papillary thyroid cancer which had spread to his lymph-nodes. Being the middle child of a large Catholic family, he immediately turned to his faith to navigate the situation.

Joe underwent surgery a few weeks later, and because it was so close to his vocal chords, he was terrified he would never sing again. But fate and music had greater, more hopeful plans, and within a few months he was back at it.

During his sophomore year of college Joe started playing live shows for college students at nightclubs all over Louisiana. After performing to a sold-out Varsity Theatre in Baton Rouge, he was presented the opportunity by Old Row to go on tour as an opening act for tailgate parties. Reveling in his recovery and embracing the role of college partier, Joe performed gigs in Texas and Louisiana, opening for everyone from indie rock band Stop Light Observation to rapper Trinidad James.

After the short tour, Joe got back in the studio and in October 2019 released his fourth single “Already Love You”, co-written with and produced by multiple number 1 hit songwriter, Brock Berryhill (with hits performed by Kenny Chesney, Brantley Gilbert, and Kane Brown) and songwriter Josh Jenkins (front man of Texas-based Green River Ordinance with songs performed by Jordan Davis, Muscadine Bloodline, and Walker Hayes) - which he followed with more shows until COVID-19 hit in early 2020.

Joe then released “If I Loved You Then” in the midst of the pandemic, which was picked up by several prominent Spotify playlists (New Music Nashville and Whiskey Riff) as well as a number of prominent blogs.

The success during the pandemic led to Joe feeling the call to pursue his career in Nashville. In August of 2020, “I (Joe) drove the 10 hours in a U-Haul by myself from Lafayette carrying my entire life,” he says. “I’ve been working on myself and my songs ever since.”

Joe is looking forwards to rolling out new songs in 2023, returning to his Louisiana roots, with a brand new “sound” that he describes as “kitchen-sink-country”. “I took everything that life, Nashville, Louisiana, and God have taught me and put it into my music. It’s a little bit a soul, rock ‘n roll, and everything but the kitchen sink. It’s just who I am,” says Joe.

Experiencing and surviving the traumas and triumphs that have defined his young adult years has quickly matured Joe as a human being, songwriter, and artist with a wealth of raw emotional material to draw from. Despite everything he’s been through, he is just getting started.

Joe states, “It’s a dream to be making music about my experiences. I’m hopeful that my songs can help people heal, count their blessings, or just have a good time. If I can do that, that’ll be worth it all.”