Today we’d like to introduce you to April Smith.
Hi April, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember…churches, festivals, you name it! Like many other artists, I got my start in church and worked my way up through the local opry circuits as a teenager. When I was 18, I decided I knew more than everyone else, got married and started a family. Music was still my passion and I did continue to pursue it for the first nine years of my marriage. However, it began to take a toll on our relationship and I felt like I owed it to my kids to try everything I could to make it work. So I stepped away from music for almost seven years. When my dad died in 2014, I was lost. For two years, I cried every single day and just couldn’t understand why things weren’t getting easier. Then in 2016, I was asked to fill in at a festival for 30 minutes for a last-minute cancelation. After I sang, I had a gentlemen come up to me and say, “I don’t know where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing, but if you aren’t singing music every day of your life, you aren’t doing what God put you here to do.” He had a band and asked if I would consider joining them. Before I even thought about it, I said YES! That’s the day I stopped crying because I realized that music and lyrics filled a hole in my heart that my dad had left that nothing else could help heal. Sadly, my marriage didn’t survive my return to music. However, I think God has a plan in all of it and I will keep pushing to put music out and try to touch people’s lives the way that music has touched mine. We released my first album in February 2020 and are looking forward to what the future holds!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
To quote one of my favorite lines from a movie…”If it were easy, everybody would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.” This road has been a long one and very challenging. Almost daily, I wonder if I’m making the right decisions. When you do this alone, you are solely responsible if you make the right or wrong decision. Female artists definitely have more trouble gaining traction in the industry. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told that female singers just don’t draw a crowd like a male singer does. In this business, you have to get used to hearing the door close and keep knocking until you get one to open. It’s also incredibly challenging because I still have two girls at home that I am raising and work as a full-time school teacher during the week. Many days I get off at 3:45, already have the car loaded, and head to a gig straight from there. There are lots of long drives and late nights alone that can be a challenge, but I truly wouldn’t take anything in the world for this life. I’m stubborn and I’m not going anywhere anytime soon!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a Texas Country music artist and proud of it! I have been compared to some of the greats such as Martina McBride, Patsy Cline, and Barbara Mandrell. I’ve had a lot of great things in my career, but I would say I am most proud of my song Enough. I wrote it on the heals of my divorce and it’s my life. However, I’m most proud of it because I’ve had so many people reach out to me and say that that song changed their life. It gave them the strength to leave the bad situation they were in, to stand up and say I am enough, and to change their path. If I can do that for just one person, then all of my hard work is worth it! One thing that sets me apart from the others is that I truly try to craft my sound to be more traditional country. I think people miss that and I want to be the one who makes it a staple on the radio again.
How do you think about happiness?
My kids are the light of my life. I love watching how they are growing into responsible adults and productive members of society. It makes me even prouder that they have good hearts and are genuinely good people. I know that no matter what happens to me, the world is a much kinder and brighter place because of three lives that I brought into it!
Contact Info:
- Email: management@aprilnsmithmusic.com
- Website: www.aprilnsmithmusic.com
- Instagram: @aprilnsmithmusic
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/aprilnsmithmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjZ6F_Z4ABTTc1O4w6LFTMg
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2vDINIkd7WW5eYFdlxg7tq?si=XwYN1FVsTl-tRuz0IJT0OA
Image Credits
Photos by Russ Dignam.
