Today we’d like to introduce you to Evan Troop.
Evan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I am a rock and country artist from Dallas, Texas.
From the time I was a child, I expressed a strong interest in music. At four years of age, I began taking Piano, picked up percussion at 11 and then finally made my way to guitar at 18.
While attending Hebron High School in North Dallas, I secured a nomination from Senator John Cornyn. This nomination coupled with a strong academic track record allowed me to earn an appointment to the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) at Kings Point, New York.
After graduating summa cum laude from Kings Point in 2009, I sailed around the world as a ship’s officer aboard containerships, car carriers, military sealift command vessels, and drilling ships. Furthermore, I have served as an officer in the United States Naval Reserve for the past 10 years. I will be retiring from the Navy in January 2020 with an honorable discharge.
During my time at sea, I worked on several notable projects as a ship’s officer including the Macondo 252 BP Relief Well Intercept Team. In 2010, this team successfully brought an end to the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It was during this time navigating the high seas and traveling around the world that I began honing my skills as a songwriter.
From 2016 to 2018, I spent 18 months putting together 14 demo tracks at Duprey Recording Studios in Dallas. After the demos were complete, I networked with music industry professionals with the hopes of finding a partner that could take my songs to the next level.
In the summer of 2018, I got connected with Bryan Todd who is a multi-platinum Grammy-nominated producer in Nashville, TN. Bryan and I hit it off, and together we created the “Evan Troop EP” which was released in September of 2018.
2019 has been an amazing ride thus far. We have released four singles years to date, and my songs have started to receive noticeable attention. As of October 2019, the 10 released songs have almost 1mm views and plays across Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music and YouTube.
The plan is to continue this momentum into 2020. Next month, I will be returning to the studio to work on five new singles which will be released in the spring and summer of 2020. Furthermore, I am planning to start my first full-length album late next year.
Outside of music, I own a lake house at Possum Kingdom Lake in West Texas. I purchased a new wakeboarding boat earlier this year, and my favorite activity is spending time with friends, family and my dog Fender out on the water.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There have been a plethora of obstacles and challenges along the way.
Early in life, I was diagnosed with a processing problem in English. In fact, the speech pathologists and English tutors unanimously told my parents that I would most likely never graduate high school.
Instead of choosing to accept this and pump me full of medications to focus, my mom worked with me daily to help tackle my processing problem. Finally, in high school with the help of my English teacher Ms. Duffy (to whom I am forever grateful), English finally clicked.
It is funny how God and the universe both work in mysterious ways. The very handicap that plagued me for most of life has now become my greatest asset. Both in business and music, I possess a strong ability to effortlessly communicate meaning, emotion and feelings.
While I attribute a lot of my success to my work ethic, I would not be where I am today without my mother’s help. She is the strongest and most amazing woman I ever met, and I am forever grateful for all the time she spent with me to overcome my learning disability.
As anyone who has recorded music can attest, the process is unbelievably tedious. Per track, you are looking at anywhere between 80 to 120 hours of work. To fund my project, I was working 60 to 70 hours with my full-time job, and spending every weekend in the studio. Those 18 months were the longest of my life and extremely lonely. My friends thought I was crazy for trying to pursue music while holding down a demanding job in finance. During that time, I received numerous voicemails from friends and family asking if I was still alive given that they hadn’t seen me in months.
Finally, after spending 15 hours a week over those 18 months, I felt that the tracks were ready to circulate. The tracks ended up in the hands of Bryan Todd, a multi-platinum Grammy-nominated producer in Nashville, TN. Bryan reached out and agreed to produce five of the tracks to create the “Evan Troop EP”. Yet more work was yet to be done.
When we released the EP in September of 2018, I did not have any presence on social media nor had I been playing live shows over the past year. As a result, the EP was only able to garner a few thousand plays in the first few months. This was extremely defeating given that I had invested three years of my time to get those songs out to the public. Feedback from friends, clients and colleagues didn’t help as they mocked the EP’s poor performance.
That being said, instead of giving up, it motivated me to work harder. I hired on a social media manager, started building a following and jumped back into writing and recording. As my presence grew, it was encouraging reading comments from fans/followers. Statements like “they love the song”, “it helped me work through a tough time” or “they dig the sound” motivated me to press on.
Today, my 10 songs have almost 1mm views and plays across Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music and YouTube. Furthermore, we just hit over 10,000 monthly listeners on Spotify in September. Thus it has been a long road, but it is making the victory that much more enjoyable.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
My craft is blending rock and country in a sound that is unique. People ask me what artist most closely resembles my music. The honest answer is I have absolutely no idea because I feel that no one sounds remotely similar to my voice and style playing. That being said, there are a ton of artists I admire:
Led Zeppelin
The Beatles
Pink Floyd
Deftones
Tool
Ed Sheeran
John Mayer
Allison Krauss
Lil Wayne
Drake
Chris Stapleton
Tyler Childers
Post Malone
The Civil Wars
Ellie Goulding
I am most proud about my songs being 100% authentic and a direct reflection of my life as well as my experiences. I don’t write songs to be hit. Instead, these are personal experiences that have significant meaning to me. This is why positive feedback from a fans and listeners inspires me to keep writing, performing and sharing my story.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If there is one thing I would have done differently, it would have been to have the confidence to start this sooner. I had written about 50 songs by the time I was in my mid-twenties. However, it wasn’t until five years later that I decided to go for it. What I’ve learned in this process is that we are the maestros of our own destiny. Success comes with not being afraid to fail and putting yourself out there.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2588 North Houston Street Apt 1803
Dallas, TX 75219 - Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5xXU7WqQdNvKtsZpeP08s9
- Phone: 214-697-5610
- Email: evantroop24@gmail.com
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