There was just this stigma that you talk to your producer, or you talk to somebody at the label and they go to Mike, and they figure it out and get your questions answered. “It wasn’t necessarily on purpose, I don’t think, especially not from Mike. “There was a disconnect from the artists to Mike Curb himself,” Brice said. They even sat at a piano and sang gospel songs together.
The two met for lunch, which turned into a four-hour meeting at Curb’s Green Hills home where they talked about their families, their love of music. He wanted to discuss the situation with Curb CEO and founder Mike Curb, the music industry mogul who had guided the careers of artists like Tim McGraw, LeAnn Rimes and Hank Williams Jr.īrice said it wasn’t typical at Curb, or other record labels, for artists to just pick up the phone to call the boss for a meeting, but that’s what he did. He wasn’t pleased with his debut album, especially with the concept that the music didn’t reflect him as an artist. In fact, there was a point when he felt like his career as an artist was on the wrong track.
These days, Brice’s touring configuration includes the exact same band as a decade ago, but he’s now supported by a road crew, two trucks and three tour buses.īut Brice, now 38, didn’t go immediately from scrappy DIY artist to filling arenas. He has that Garth-like quality.” From 1 van to 2 trucks and 3 tour buses It reminded me - just how he is with people and his songwriting - of Garth. We knew it was going to be a grind and not going to be easy,” DeVincenzo said. DeVincenzo and his partner Haley McLemore manage Lee Ann Womack, Maddie and Tae, Tyler Farr, the Randy Rogers Band, Brett Young and Runaway June. The bet paid off, as DeVincenzo’s career as a manager has blossomed alongside Brice’s. It’s hard, but if you do it, you’re putting a tiny bit of money back into yourself.’ ”ĭeVincenzo, who was early on in his career as a manager in Nashville, believed in Brice so much he took money out of his own 401(k) to finance his early tours and buy that first van. You pull a U-haul trailer and you go do it. “He said, ‘My belief is you get a van, you get a simple band and you go work. The first thing we talked about was his vision. We still have never signed a paper, Enzo and I. “They said whatever they thought I wanted to hear. “A lot of them seemed fine, but some of them came across like a used car salesman,” Brice said, recalling meeting the managers after a private showcase.
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He ended up partnering with up-and-coming manager Enzo DeVincenzo when the two connected on a personal level and saw eye to eye on how to further build his career.Īnd so it came to be that a country boy from South Carolina and an Italian-American kid from New Jersey formed a lasting partnership at the beginning of their careers, without even signing a contract. When the single “She Ain't Right” began climbing the charts, Brice attracted the attention of artist managers from Nashville and Los Angeles. He wrote cuts for artists like Jason Aldean and saw his songwriting career gain traction. I got $20 to dig a ditch whether it was 3 feet long, 24 inches deep or whether it was 80 feet long and 24 inches deep." DIY business model launched Brice's career “Before he could afford a trencher, which costs $800 or $900 to rent or buy that he didn’t have, I was his trencher. “I’ve done that with my dad since I was 10 years old,” Brice said, remembering the early days of his father’s business. ► Brice charms hockey fans with hits, heartĪnd the work ethic would serve Brice equally well when he took the risk that countless singer-songwriters have taken and packed up everything he owned to move to Nashville with visions of stardom twinkling in his eyes like the lights that hang over the football field in his hometown of Sumter, S.C. The work ethic, combined with Brice’s hulking 6-foot-3 frame, helped him earn a football scholarship at powerhouse Clemson University. Working for his dad is where Brice developed the grit that has served him well throughout his career. So, making Friday night lights happen is important work that must begin with somebody digging giant holes for enormous wooden posts. Football is part of the cultural lifeblood in South Carolina. It begins in rural South Carolina, where Brice’s father worked installing the lights at football fields across the state. Only the story doesn’t begin on Music Row, where Brice has become a power broker with creative control over his career that is perhaps unparalleled in Nashville.
This is the story about how Lee Brice came to mean so much to Curb Records, Nashville's iconic independent label. Watch Video: Nashville's top September concerts
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