Grayson Russell

That's the crazy part about being an actor that I never thought would lend itself to music is that I learned early on what stories I can tell well and ones that I just got to leave alone.

That's a good skill to have.

There's somebody else that can play this better than me.

There's somebody else that can tell the story better than me.

There's some that is mine to tell that I can only communicate at the most effective.

Songwriting is the same way.

Performing is the same way.

My pet peeve here in town is, you know, watching somebody sing a song and I don't believe that they believe it.

You could sun stop?

Yeah.

You can tell when, even though the performance might be immaculate, the heart behind whatever it is, disingenuous.

And not that they're not trying to really communicate it effectively.

It's just that I don't believe in what they're singing about.

or I don't believe that they believe it.

For me, it has gone hand in hand in, okay, here are the stories I know can tell well.

Here are the things that I've lived through.

Here are the ones I can communicate that people will believe.

Even though I lived through all this other stuff, they're not going to believe that frigging actor, kid, whatever, actually had to go through X, Y, and Z. And so some of those, you know, I have to let somebody else sing who, you know, people will believe that, you know, they might have lived through.

Dude, trying to stay alive.

Trying to stay alive.