Kyle Bradley is Bringing Soul To Georgia

Photography by: Robert Lombardo

Bradley is an independent singer/songwriter from Texas but moved to Georgia when he began performing his songs while attending Georgia Southern University. His soulful country music gained him and his band, Company, local fame in mainstays like The Blue Room, Southern Social and Gnat’s Landing.
It was then in 2020, when Bradley moved to Atlanta, GA, that he released his soulful country singles called “If I Never Left Georgia” and “Ghosts.” These singles are but a taste of what to expect from his debut record set to be released in 2023.

In anticipation of his debut record, South chatted with Kyle Bradley about his music and his hopes for the future.

South magazine: Where did your love for country music start?
Kyle Bradley: It probably started with Merle Haggard.

So when I was a kid, my grandpa, who was also a musician, and I would go to his house. He would have all this sheet music lying around like Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. The old outlaw country kind of stuff. So fast forward ways down the road, I got a guitar. My uncle taught me how to play a Merle Haggard song, “Today I started loving you again,” and that really piqued my interest.

S: When you create a song like “If I never left Georgia,” when do you know that it’s polished and ready to be released?
KB: The process is you write the song, and then you’ve got the bones of it. You’ve got the lyrics, the chord progression. The harmony and structure. Then it’s kind of when you are done with the different steps of the process and ask, ‘When do I feel like I’ve got a song here?’ You’ll workshop it as you introduce it to people for the first time, and then when nothing else jumps at you, you’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s the song.’”

S: Songs that you’re performing now that you created two years ago. Do they sound different when you perform? Have your songs evolved?
KB: Yeah, they definitely do. Even with songs like “If I Never Left Georgia” or “Ghost,” we might find something cool that we really dig right now in an arrangement or the way we play it right now that wasn’t super present then when we or before we recorded it. Songs evolve over time.

S: What comes first, the words or the melody? Or does it depend on the day?
KB: It depends on the day, in a way. I would say that the idea comes first. It’s just a matter of whether it is a philosophical idea that I’ve got to use with lyrics. Or is it like I was humming a silly song to my dog, and I was like, ‘Yeah, that melody is kind of tight. What can I do with that?’ It really does depend on the day.

S: Do you have your Grammy speech pre-prepared?
KB: I do not have a Grammy speech prepared. I just never thought that this music would ever really be ‘Grammy nominated.’ But maybe! I’m not opposed to it. I would be super stoked. I’ve just never really thought about it. I don’t see myself as a guy that’s chasing hit singles. My songs all just stand on their own merit. Do people enjoy it? Do People like it? If they don’t, that’s okay, too. I’m still going to make the songs that I make. ν
Keep up to date with Kyle Bradley’s music on his website kylebradleymusic.com/epk or via his rep Nate Shaffer and Charlie Schmitt of S² Sports & Entertainment nate@s2-agency.com.

“So when I was a kid, my grandpa, who was also a musician, had all this sheet music lying around like Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard. The old outlaw country kind of stuff. So fast forward, my uncle taught me how to play [a guitar] a Merle Haggard song.”

Bradley and his representative, Nate Shaffer take a few moments before a gig on Savannah Georgia’s famed Riverstreet.

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