Photography by Bone and Honey Studio
Greyson Turner was five when he first stepped onto a stage. At ten, he landed a role in a major Las Vegas production. Then lost it. American Idol came and went, too.
Not exactly a quiet introduction to the music business.
But somewhere between South Carolina and Austin, the young performer became a songwriter with stories of his own. Stories about leaving home, losing direction, finding it again and occasionally wondering whether any of this was a particularly sensible idea.
His debut album Reap What You've Sown brought those experiences together. Now, with a sound he calls “stitched-up Americana,” Turner is looking ahead.
We spoke about the disappointments, the music and why success no longer needs a finish line.
01 — BEFORE THE SPOTLIGHT
You were performing for audiences long before you began telling your own stories through songs. Looking back, when did music stop being about performing and start becoming something you needed to express?
I started performing in front of audiences when I was as young as five years old and haven’t stopped since then. I think that, from the beginning, music for me was always about something I needed to express. When I was a kid and would sing cover songs at talent shows or showcases, or even just jumping on stage with whatever local band my parents took me to see, I wasn’t doing it because I craved the attention it brought or the approval of adults around me. I was doing it because I felt called to, and because I craved the feeling being on stage gave me. I think the change that I’ve experienced was a gradual evolution of understanding myself better and therefore being able to capture my feelings and experiences through songwriting. When I first started writing songs at 11 or 12 years old, I was writing about what songwriters are “supposed” to write about (love, heartbreak, etc) without really understanding those things. As I’ve grown up, the songwriting aspect of my life has become a much more integral part of the self-expression I practice with my music career, and the songs I write carry real weight in regard to my emotions and beliefs.
02 — THE PROMISE OF THE STAGE
At ten, you spent months preparing for Viva Elvis before your role was suddenly removed. How did that early experience change the way you approach opportunities and expectations today?
I think that experience was a great introduction to the entertainment industry for me. Getting the part solidified a belief in myself that I was talented enough for my singing/performing to take me places. Losing the part showed me from a young age that trying to “make it” in the entertainment business would be a life-long road of ups and downs, wins and losses, successes and failures, etc. In a lot of ways, I think that experience gave me the grit and determination I still rely on to push myself forward every day.
03 — TURNING DISAPPOINTMENT INTO MUSIC
After American Idol, you wrote Lightning in the Sky on the flight home. Was that the first time you discovered that songwriting could give something back to you after an experience had taken something away?
Funny enough, after my role in Viva Elvis was removed, I (with the help of my mom) wrote a little parody of an Elvis song called “Guitar Man” that was about getting let go from the show. This was a year or so before I wrote my first actual song, but it may have been the first time I realized how powerful songwriting could be, and I think it probably helped me process the experience in a way I wasn’t even capable of understanding at that age. Five or six years later, after my American Idol experience, writing Lightning in the Sky was a more powerful version of that same thing.
04 — BACK AT THE CENTER
You spent years performing, studying and fronting American Megafauna without releasing new solo music. What eventually made you realize it was time to put your own songs at the centre again?
In late 2024, American Megafauna was starting to fizzle out as one of our members moved away and we all collectively agreed to put that band on hold. Around that same time I met Eric Harrison, one of the owners of Studio 601, and he invited me to come check the studio out and play some songs for him and his business partner, Mike Ingber. At that time, I was coming out of a pretty depressive mental health period that had lasted a few years, and I finally felt like I had control over my life again. I had a bunch of songs in my back pocket that I had been writing since I moved to Austin in 2020, and two producers, in Eric and Mike, who believed in me. All of this happening at that same time made me realize that now was my chance to put “Greyson Turner” as an artist back at the center of everything I was doing.
05 — WHEN THE SONG IS YOURS
You've spent much of your life connecting with audiences through other people's songs. What changes inside you when you're standing onstage singing something entirely your own?
Singing something that I’ve written to a venue full of people who are there to listen is really such a different experience than any other kind of performing I’ve done. When I’m playing a show, there is always this part of me that takes over and only exists up there on stage. That part of me is amplified and feels so much stronger when I’m playing my own music. Every time that I play a song like “Tonight” for example, which was born out of some really dark nights alone in my apartment in my early months in Austin, it feels like this therapeutic release of all that negative energy I had pent up inside me. I think that audiences can feel this too. The emotions that I feel playing these songs that are deeply personal to me is conveyed to them, and the whole room feels that energy and that release.
06 — REAP WHAT YOU'VE SOWN
Your debut album brought together songs released across an important new chapter of your career. When you finally heard Reap What You've Sown as a complete record, what did it reveal about the songwriter you had become?
Because the album was sort of piecemealed together over the course of 8 or so months, and features songs that were written well before I started working on it as well as a couple songs written during the process, it paints a very interesting picture of the way I was feeling when I was in the deepest trenches of depression alongside how I felt after I had begun this new chapter of my career. I think about how the song “Hanging ‘Round” roots for the hopeful side of battling one’s own brain, whereas songs like “Tonight” or “Now” deal in despair, solitude, and admissions of defeat. Overall though, listening to the album in its entirety reveals to me how in tune I seemed to be with the different ways I was feeling when I wrote all of these songs.
07 — STITCHED-UP AMERICANA
Since your debut, you've released a steady stream of new music, from Little Miss to Nothing to Gain. Where do you hear yourself taking greater creative risks or making different choices than you did on the album?
I think the biggest thing I’ve focused on with my new music is keeping the songwriting intact and truthful to who I am as a person and an artist, while also sonically pushing myself forward. We (myself, my producers at studio 601, and my post-producer Daniel Okonek) wanted to experiment with the blending of genres and find ways to make Americana/folk-rock a little more modern. The term that we’ve coined for my sound is “stitched-up Americana”, in the sense that the songwriting often deals with feeling and healing from pain and sorrow, as well as the way that the sound has become this stitched together blend of different genres and influences.
08 — TEN AND TWO
Ten and Two looks back on leaving South Carolina for Austin, and the uncertainty that followed. Now that you've built a life and musical career there, what does the song mean to you that it couldn't have meant when you first left home?
In a lot of ways, I still feel some of those same misgivings that the songs speaks of about the choices I’ve made. Pursuing a career in music, especially as a solo artist, is an incredibly difficult path full of frustrations. I would be lying if I said I don’t sometimes wonder if I would be better off being closer to my family and friends back home in the Carolinas pursuing a more “traditional” way of life. But what’s different now is that I have a belief in myself and my abilities that wasn’t present six years ago when I moved to Austin, and I’m also able to see and appreciate the progress that I’ve made in my career (something I struggled heavily with my first few years trying to make a name for myself as an artist). Because of these factors, I see that perseverance and discipline in myself more-so than ever before. The song becomes less about continuing on because I have no other option, but rather choosing every day to stay determined and focused on my aspirations.
09 — NO SINGLE PATH
Austin became the place where you developed as a musician and returned to your own songwriting. What has being part of its music community taught you that you might never have discovered on your own?
Austin is a city full of so much talent – an unbelievable amount. Being around my friends and peers in the music scene here is incredibly inspiring; not just witnessing how talented they are, but the ways they show up for the community and want to build together. I see (and have been a part of) so much collaboration across this scene. I hear my friends play songs they’ve written and instantly feel inspired to create. But I think the number one thing I’ve learned from Austin’s music community is that there is no one singular path to success in this industry. Artists and musicians here all have varying, diverse dreams and goals and we’re all taking different routes to achieving what we want.
10 — SUCCESS WITHOUT A FINISH LINE
You've experienced big opportunities, difficult setbacks and the freedom of building something independently. When you think about success today, what matters to you that your younger self might never have understood?
I think that success (to me) is no longer some far-off, barely attainable abstract concept that exists in an unknown future. It’s no longer telling myself that “if I just achieve this or that, then I’ll be satisfied with my life”. I’ve grown to realize that success for me means choosing every day to pursue what makes me happy. It means choosing to have a positive outlook and attitude no matter what outside forces may throw at me. It means focusing on the aspects of my life that I have control over. Now, don’t get me wrong – I have my share bad days and bad attitudes. But I’m much better at recovering from those days and feelings and not letting them get the best of me. Success, to me, is the growth that I know I’ve made as I just wrote all of that out.