Notre Dame grad Kevin Ray Brost prepares to travel country in support of music career

Kevin Ray Brost is not unlike a lot of 22-year-olds right now, a fresh college graduate meeting with executives and looking to launch a career.

Four years after graduating from Notre Dame Regional High School, Brost received a degree in music business from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, and has found a home with Kore PR, a record company on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee.

Brost will not be operating out of a cubicle in the mecca of country music, however. Instead, he will be packing his guitar in his red SUV and pursuing his dream.

While he has spent the past four years learning the ropes of the music industry and making connections, he's also spent a lot of time behind the wheel.

Constant 2 1/2-hour journeys between Murray and Nashville during his college days also prepped him for life on the road.

Kevin Ray Brost strums his guitar Saturday in Cape Girardeau.Fred Lynch

He'll be singing his songs, such as "Stay" and "Take Me Home," which will be among the tracks on an upcoming EP release through Kore PR that will come out this fall.

"I'm basically going to be living out of cars and hotels," said Brost, who will be basing his first year out of college in Cape Girardeau. "I'm basically going to be traveling everywhere from St. Louis to Louisville to Indianapolis to Nashville, down to Austin, over to Lubbock, Texas, just everywhere and just trying to branch out a little more than just the Midwestern thing."

As for many college graduates, it's an exciting time for Brost. He's been a man with a plan, and the pieces are falling into place as he hoped.

He found out this week Mile 1 Records in Rome, Georgia, will help in the production, while Kore PR will promote and publicize.

He's methodically put together a resume that appeals to the industry from a logistics side, booking national touring artists and learning industry details during internships. He simultaneously nurtured his own artistry, mindful of traps that could snare his dreams.

Kevin Ray Brost poses for a photo at the Mississippi River, a favorite place to play his guitar and compose lyrics, on Saturday in Cape Girardeau.Fred Lynch

"I don't want to be the guy who is like an agent but also does his artist thing," Brost said. "I want to be an artist first and foremost, and that's how I want people to see me."

Thanks to his schooling, he has a unique view and deeper understanding of the music business, which he can use in his favor.

"Those are a lot of skills that I was doing as a businessman but am applying to my own artist career as well, which is really cool," Brost said. "A lot of hard work, but it's paid off for sure."

Right now, his music is front and center. Usually with the help of a guitar or piano, he writes his songs. Five of them, including the previously mentioned two, will appear on the EP.

"This whole record that I'm making, it's all real experiences of mine," Brost said. "They are all sort of a part of this transition period of my life that I'm in. I am ending college; I am entering the real world, as people call it; and I'm kind of living this unconventional lifestyle. I kind of am a drifter, living in my lipstick-red SUV, traveling the country."

Kevin Ray Brost poses for a photo Saturday in Cape Girardeau.Fred Lynch

He laughs at those words. While he may be a "drifter," he's firmly rooted in the people in his life. He's grateful for the support of his parents, has a loyal girlfriend he met in college and even draws in various close friends to accompany him in the recording studio. His songs on his upcoming record have a common thread.

"I'm big on bands who have a record where the whole record tells a story, you know, so every song on the record kind of talks about, you have this transition period and being lost and having those people along the way help you find out who you want to be, where you want to be, what you want to be doing, those kind of things that I think everybody at this age struggles with," Brost said. "So that's what the whole record talks about."

Among his longtime friends is Collin Andersson, with whom Brost first appeared onstage as part of a five-person ensemble called Lazy Sunday at a charity function before a packed "cafetorium" at Notre Dame. The group debuted with the Beatles' "Come Together," followed by "When You Were Young" by The Killers, launching four years of memorable times and bonding as well as a life course.

"I just remember, it was that night, that, like, everything changed for me," said Brost, recalling the thoughts of a 14-year-old freshman. "I knew I was going to be a musician. There was totally no other option."

While the group, rooted in friendship and fun, typically played hard-rock songs with a mix of members at a variety of events, Brost, who sang in the choir and performed in musicals throughout his four years at Notre Dame, harbored an appreciation for other genres. Blues music, performed by the likes of T-Bone Walker and B.B. King, and outlaw country had strong appeal, and still do.

Kevin Ray Brost poses for a photo at the Mississippi River, a favorite place to play his guitar and compose lyrics, on Saturday in Cape Girardeau.Fred Lynch

"I love Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, people like that," Brost said. "I love listening to Chet Atkins; he's one of the best guitar players ever, like him and Jerry Reed playing. ... Oh, it's phenomenal. I can't listen to somebody rapping about a girl in jean shorts and a Bud Light."

Andersson graduated two years before Brost and enrolled at Murray State, where the two united again as members of a trio for three years.

When Andersson again graduated, Brost began pursuit of a solo career, gravitating toward Americana, a genre that has influences from folk, country and blues, among others.

For a professed non-rocker, it fits his preference for an acoustic guitar, a back porch and a cup of coffee.

"There was always a sound I wanted to go after, which I think I'm accomplishing now," said Brost, who branched out on his own just over a year ago. "I'm pretty happy with the music I'm making. I really wanted to keep doing it, and I was like, 'You know, sometimes if you really want to do something right, you got to do it yourself' type thing. So I was like, 'I've always wanted to be my own artist, and now I've got the opportunity to do so, so I'm not going to half-ass it. I'm going to hit it as hard as I can and do everything I can to make it happen.'"

His music bubbles soulfully to the surface, producing what he finds to be a unique sound without a conscious attempt to be different.

"Stay," on which Andersson sang backup, was released with a video through Gravity Artist Agency.

His solo career, first briefly launched as Kevin Brost, quickly was flipped to Kevin Ray Brost.

The idea to include his middle name was planted in his final days at Notre Dame. It was the way he signed his name on a senior sign he believes still hangs in a hallway at the school.

At the time, he caught grief for including his middle name, an oddity among the signatures.

"People kept asking me, 'Dude, what the heck are you doing? Why would you put your middle name like that? You're such an idiot,'" Brost said with a laugh. "And I remember my friend Madeline Dufek, at the time, she was like, 'Because when he gets famous, that's what he's going to go by. That's what's going to happen.'

"And I never anticipated using my middle name for all this stuff, but when Madeline said that about me back then and I looked at that sign when they put it up and it had my middle name, I was like, 'You know what, I'm going to make sure I live up to that.' And so that gave me motivation throughout college to pursue this and to where I'm still going to be pursuing it now. And labels in Nashville on Music Row know me as Kevin Ray Brost, my publicist, David Gosselin, up in New York City, who knows me as that, so it's worked out well."

jbreer@semissourian.com

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