Trying to get all of Logan Mize’s backstory straight is a little bit like herding cats. But it makes for some great songwriting material.
It involves stories about him living in his Suburban, Justin Timberlake being a fan, his great uncle discovering Buck Owens back in Bakersfield, selling out 2,000-seat venues with no record label behind him, driving a dump truck, wooing his now wife with sushi and a bucket of chicken wings, filming a commercial with Hayden Panettiere, getting a smile and a nod from Merle Haggard during a performance and being named the tourism ambassador by the Governor of the state of Kansas.
All true stories. And there are more where those came from.
There was that show he booked before any of his records came out. He and his band sold out a 600-person capacity club. “We tried out all the songs,” Mize remembers. “They sold out of beer three times that night and they didn’t pay us much of anything because I didn’t even know you had contracts for that sort of thing. That was my crash course in touring and playing clubs. All my old friends, teachers, all the people who laughed at me for going to Nashville -- all of a sudden, we held their attention. For three hours. That night I was like ‘this might actually work.’”
But before any of the musical momentum, a young Mize would sing Elton John songs on a karaoke machine in his bedroom, but refused to sing in front of anyone. But after a Kenny Chesney concert in Wichita, the course of this 16-year-old kid’s life was forever changed.
“I have gone through waves of what I want to happen with my career,” Mize says. “Sometimes I forget about the 16-year-old kid who wanted to be Kenny Chesney. But ultimately at the end of the day I am still that kid sitting in the nose-bleed section seeing all the semis parked out front of the arena. I wish I could say I’m just happy to be in the game, but that’s not true. If we aren’t going to shoot for the biggest outcome possible, why do anything?”
That’s precisely why Logan Mize hasn’t let any of the pitfalls that have been sprinkled throughout his musical journey slow him down. And why his new record, Come Back Road, is his best one to date. He has endured bands breaking up. Drummers moving away. Recording projects with big names going unfinished. He’s been homeless, he’s been turned down multiple times up and down Music Row, and he’s come out on top with a project chock full of great songs that is already generating more great stories to add to the story that is his life.