As he gears up for a year that includes touring with one of Nashville’s biggest stars, Vincent Mason is ready to establish himself as an expert craftsman of what he describes as “casual love songs.”
Mason, who celebrated his 25th birthday last Monday, plumbs the depths of past heartbreak on “There I Go,” his riveting debut album. But the Georgia-born musician is also eager to put his past behind him and embrace the moment, and for good reason: His rich, soulful voice has already endeared him to scores of country fans, both young and old.
“Every country song seems to be, like, you meet a girl at the bar and then you marry ’em. How many times can you marry the girl you met at the bar?” Mason quipped to HuffPost in an interview. “My songs are kind of like, ‘Hey, I met you at the bar, and I’m leaving tonight.’ I’ve leveled a lot with sadness, but I’m really happy right now on my own. Positive emotions are a bit harder to put words to in my experience, [but] there’s a lot of optimism.”
“There I Go,” released Nov. 7, gets off to a rollicking start with the title track, which positions Mason as his generation’s answer to Brad Paisley or Travis Tritt. His strengths as a singer-songwriter, however, become even more apparent on songs like “Damned If I Do,” “Sit With It,” “Painkiller,” and “Hell is a Dance Floor,” each of which also reflects his love of rock musicians like John Mayer and Tom Petty.
“A lot of alt-rock bands that came out in the early 2000s would be considered country bands now, so that’s what we wanted to incorporate on the album,” Mason said. “My producer, Jake Gear, turned me on to stuff like that. We were telling the band, ‘What if The Wallflowers wrote a country song?’ We were having so much fun finding timeless sounds. I want all of my music to be that way.”
Despite Mason’s range of influences, he didn’t initially set out to become a professional musician. Though he dabbled in singing in high school, he had his sights set on being a sports or entertainment lawyer when he enrolled at the University of Mississippi.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, thrusting his college career into uncertainty and prompting him to begin playing music. After writing just five original songs, he relocated to Nashville.
“Looking back now, it seems insane, [but] I think COVID lent itself to resetting your life,” he recalled. “I’m pretty spiritual and I felt a push beyond myself to do it. I love to work hard, and I felt like that’s just what I was supposed to do.”
Mason went on to unveil his debut EP, “A Little Too Good,” in 2023. But it was his 2024 breakthrough, “Hell is a Dance Floor,” that got Nashville to take notice when it became a viral smash. His wistful ballad, “Heart Like This,” soon caught the attention of Mayer, who praised it as “songwriting 101” while featuring it on his SiriusXM channel that same year.
The release of “There I Go” looks poised to expand Mason’s fanbase even further. This summer, he joined musicians Jordan Davis and Parker McCollum on tour, and last month, he made his first appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” where he performed “Hell is a Dance Floor.”
In January, he’ll embark on a 25-city headline tour across the U.S. and Canada, and is set to perform before his biggest audiences to date with a five-night opening slot on country superstar Morgan Wallen’s stadium tour next spring.
Whether one of Mason’s new songs will repeat the success of “Hell is a Dance Floor” remains to be seen. However, he’s less interested in chasing such highs, and points to McCollum as an artist whose trajectory he’d most like to emulate.
“He’s been an inspiration for me to write songs, and I ultimately want to end up like him and build what he’s built with his family and his fans,” he said. “Just having a good heart will keep you in the business longer than anything else.”
