NASHVILLE, Tennessee- I remember the first time hearing Spencer Crandall’s song “Made.”
The lyrics Cause soulmates aren’t found they’re made/ Yeah, we choose each other every day/ Even when we bend, we know we won’t break/ We just bounce back better ’cause/ Soulmates aren’t found/ they’re forged in the same fire/ Work at it even when we get tired/ Making ups out of downs/ doing all that it takes/ ‘Cause soulmates aren’t found/ they’re made stopped me in my tracks.
I thought, “This guy really gets it. He understands how relationships work. He must be a happily married man.”
It turns out I was wrong, Spencer Crandall is single, but his parents are happily married, and he knows what a good relationship looks like.
Even though Crandall’s great-grandfather was a composer, conductor, and musical savant, and several uncles were musicians, playing football was young Crandall’s main aspiration. When he was younger, he sang in church and did musical theater as a kid. However, his buddies told him, “That’s not cool. Football is cool.”
The Denver, Colorado native trained for the next eight years and got to play some college ball. But then he got hurt and had to have several surgeries and he “fell out of love with football.”
After spending much of his youth playing football, he wondered what his identity would be once it was over. He was a construction management major in college but wasn’t feeling that. After an unfortunate breakup, he gravitated to this little Walmart guitar he stole from his brother. He learned some chords and started writing songs which helped him heal mentally.
Crandall’s biggest hit to date, “My Person,” has millions of streams since its inception, and has been a favorite for weddings and those who are in love.
His insight with his deeply personal, soul-baring lyrics and ultra-smooth vocals make you want to hear every song that Crandall puts out.
Before making his Opry debut in 2022, Crandall put out three albums. His soulful sound is a bit mainstream, but his lyrics lean fully into country. The now Nashville-based artist has spent years combining pop’s untamed energy with the confessional themes of Country Music, making him one to watch regardless of your musical preference. And with his ambitious new autobiographical 20-track album, Western, the frontier expands again.
When Crandall teamed up with Spotlight Artist Julia Cole for his duet “Things I Can’t Say,” their honesty was on the forefront as they sang about all the things they couldn’t say while in a new relationship. I completely got it, and it made me grateful that I was long past the dating stage of a relationship.
Crandall has an intuition, unlike anything I have seen when it comes to songwriting.
He explained, “I think my songwriter’s brain is like this antenna that can’t go down. It has this thing when something moves me from my brain down to my toes and asks, ‘Where you are going with this?’ That makes me feel stuff. I try to write it down and then I try to make it into a song and try to distill that emotion. And I think the best songs are things that either in my life now or things that have been or how I want things to be.”
His hit song “Made” is the kind of story Crandall wants to have.
“I want to be the guy who chooses somebody. Luckily, I have parents who’ve been married for 40 years. So, I have that direct reflection to look into every day. These people are best friends after all this time. They still want to hang out with each other. It’s so cool and crazy and it’s beautiful,” he said.
His songs “Girls Like You” and “Red Flags” and highly personal and come from firsthand experience. In the first song, he chastises himself for not realizing that a beautiful girl like her is not going to stay single very long after a breakup. And while I have heard several songs that mention red flags from female singer-songwriters, Crandall is the first male artist I have heard to flesh out the idea.
What I found equally interesting about Crandall’s music are his covers. His rendition of Shania Twain’s “Still The One” absolutely does the tune justice and shows the song can be just as meaningful from a guy’s perspective.
He also covered Justin Bieber’s “Anyone” to write a country version of the pop love song whose sentiment is “You are the only one that I will ever love.” But even though the song was so good, it didn’t get the airplay it deserved because Bieber’s mega-hit “Peaches” came out soon after. It was a perfect song for Crandall to showcase.
Now the pop-country crooner has teamed up with one of my favorite people I have interviewed, Shaylen, to bring us a feel-good, hopeful song of the summer, “To Be Continued….” The dynamic new track strikes a chord with people trying to figure out their lives and relationships as they remind themselves that their story isn’t unfinished.
“The performance video with Shaylen was so fun! It felt like our vision for the song really came to life and we had way too much fun making it,” Crandall said of the creative process. “Shaylen brings so much good energy to the song and the video. I can’t wait for people to see it!”
Shaylen concurred as she called Crandall’s vision for the project “Brilliant.”
With over 300 million streams (and counting) under his belt, Crandall’s ability to share himself so selflessly in his songs is extraordinary. He knows and feels deeply and somehow manages to get those feelings into a song in a way that makes his fans want to hear more from the burgeoning artist. When it comes to songwriting, Spencer Crandall just gets it. He will be around for many years to come.
Crandall will play at CMA Fest on June 11th and throughout the US this summer. For tickets and more information, visit his website and keep up with him on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and all streaming platforms.
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Bethany Bowman is a freelance entertainment writer. You can follow her blog, Instagram, and Twitter.
