Nashville-based Austin Snell releases debut album ‘Still Bleeding’

Austin Snell’s journey from Air Force mechanic to Nike-clad Grand Ole Opry performer is an unlikely road to renown.

Five decades ago, 24-year-old Austin Snell would have been a rock-country artist more inspired by the bespoke western suits familiar to North Hollywood’s Lankershim Boulevard than by the chic, cropped button-up shirts and low-top Nike Dunk sneakers familiar to the ultra-cool fashion brand Supreme’s current location 20 minutes away on the Sunset Strip.

Five decades ago, that Supreme shop was where an iconic outpost of Tower Records was located.

Tastes and times change.

That is also an appropriate way to describe the success of Snell, a performer born in Georgia, directly between Atlanta and Savannah.

‘Digging deep’ into himself

Snell noodles away at a piano backstage at the Grand Ole Opry while wearing that previously mentioned button-up and sneakers along with his semi-mullet brunette hairdo during his latest of a half-dozen appearances on Opryland Drive.

Alongside many other unexpectedly quick-entrenching performers on one of country’s ancestral programs, he represents what Jordan Pettit, the Grand Ole Opry’s director of artist relations and programming strategy, says is “a community that fosters a bolder and more credible genre where artists with unique backgrounds and life experiences are reflected authentically.”

Aside from Snell’s fashion sense, his developing intentionality as a person and professional highlights why he’s an artist worth watching.

June saw the handiwork of Snell, alongside producer Andrew Baylis, emerge in his debut album, “Still Bleeding.”

Baylis is a Nashville native with a recent gold record with Brantley Gilbert and Jelly Roll’s duet “Son of the Dirty South.”

Working with the veteran trackmaker allowed Snell to “grow into the album by digging deep into (himself) to find (his) sound.”

What arrives is an album that sets the framework for his career.

‘I’m doing exactly what I planned to do’

How Snell arrived in Nashville is a story that says as much about passion as it does about the speed of the current jet stream that many performers are riding to success in Music City.

He’s a former Air Force senior airman who was training to be an aircraft mechanic. His decision to opt for military service over making sandwiches at Subway led to lonely boredom that manifested itself in posting guitar-aided cover songs on social media and writing original material.

Once he completed his military service, he departed for Music City. For the past two years, his snap decision to pursue a career in country music has panned out quite well.

He describes his album and songs like “Pray All the Way Home” as “personal and therapeutic” journeys through his well-being.

“I’m doing exactly what I planned to do when I (embarked upon) a music career,” he says. “I’m a creature of habit who is fully invested in making authentically ’90s country and early 2000s rock-inspired ways to get my emotions out there.”

‘Classic themes wrapped in new school sonics’

The ’90’s country to 2000s rock creative path is familiar to many modern country stars.

The reason? That era created relatively few genre superstars — and those that it did create incredibly sustained themselves.

Between August 1980 and December 1992, seven country acts — Alabama, Clint Black, Brooks and Dunn, Garth Brooks, Billy Ray Cyrus, Alan Jackson and George Strait — had the genre’s No. 1 song for roughly every other month during that 12-year span.

This was followed up by the era between 1995 and 2005, which saw nearly $300 billion in physical music units sold.

The result for Snell is a sound described by his label, Warner Music Nashville, as “featuring heavily distorted dark-energy guitars, thundering drums, and wounded vocals and introspective songcraft that reaches the level of an emotional X-ray.”

“Snell matches his country foundation with hard-rocking guitars, hip-hop beats, and the warm metallic buzz of a rip-saw vocal — classic themes wrapped in new school sonics,” they continue.

The performer’s work represents the tent posts of one of country and popular music’s most vibrant eras.

The stage as a saving grace

More than a decade prior, Snell sat in pews at church with his mother, angry that he couldn’t sleep in on Sundays. The structure of that process didn’t suit him. The messages, however, remain a guiding force in his life at present.

“Living life on my own and hitting what I felt like was rock bottom (revealed to me) what religion and salvation can mean as far as helping you survive,” he says.

Summer of 2024 saw him and Top 10 country performer Chase Matthew open for Jason Aldean.

He’s still excitable enough as an artist that his 20-minute opening set “flies by in five seconds.”

He notes that finally embracing the spirituality he was introduced to as a child has redefined his calling and desire to perform.

Getting up on stage in front of thousands is how he expresses that desire at age 24.

“All I hope I did,” he says, “is convey who I am as an artist who can get people through hard times and change their lives.”

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