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Corey Smith breaks the recording mold

By The Georgia Jukebox • August 2, 2007

Corey Smith Breaks the Recording Mold

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Originally posted @ TheState.com. This article has since been removed.
By OTIS R. TAYLOR JR. - otaylor@thestate.com

The mold has been cracked — not that Corey Smith ever wanted his music career cast.

Smith, an alt-country singer/songwriter from Georgia with a hard-drinking past, is one of a handful of popular independent performers who can truly claim independence.

Smith doesn’t have a record deal, yet he helms one of the Southeast’s most in-demand tour schedules. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“The model the major labels have been using for so long is broken,” Smith said. “They can’t cope with the Internet.”

Smith said he has been offered deals, but he spurned interest because “I like being my own boss.”

“The way technology is,” he said, “we’re able to do what most major labels can do.”

Except get on radio or TV and secure major distribution deals.

But, unlike major labels, Smith is Internet savvy.

“The CD is overpriced,” he said. “We encourage people to burn CDs” and share his music.

As a result, Smith’s popularity, frankly, is staggering.

He has more than 48,000 MySpace friends and more than 2.5 million song plays on his page. He also has had more than 70,000 iTunes downloads.

Still, Smith, who has sold out the famed Georgia Theatre in Athens, gets a lot of this: Who is Corey Smith?

“I can walk around, and no one knows who I am,” said Smith, who left a teaching job to be a full-time musician.

He’s the guy singing about partying and swigging from a beer bottle between songs. He’s also the guy who was the highest paid performer at this year’s St. Pat’s in Five Points.

The unsigned Smith earned $15,500. That was $500 more than 3 Days Grace, the festival’s ostensible headliner.

Charles Wilkie of All-In Entertainment, which booked the festival, said Smith “is one of the hottest performers in the Southeast.”

“His ticket sales aren’t lying about that,” Wilkie said.

Smith relies on little else but his songwriting. Fans ranging from high school students to adults with kids in high school could be seen nodding to his wordy (in a good way) country-soul at St. Pat’s.

Not even a major label budget can get fans to feel songs.

“What it boils down to is the songs,” Smith said. “People want to be moved, and they want to connect.

“I try to write sincere, honest songs.”

And like other true independents such as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Smith seems to be widening his connection. A fan at his last Headliners show called him the next John Mayer.

How does Smith feel about being compared to a big leaguer?

“(Mayer’s) new album, ‘Continuum,’ is probably my favorite,” Smith said. “On the other hand, I don’t want to be the next John Mayer.

“I just want to be myself.”

And there’s no mold needed for that.

Buy Corey Smith Cds at CD Baby, or Amazon, or download mp3s from iTunes