Devin Dawson Artistfacts

January 30, 1989
Orangevale, California native Devin Dawson started off as a rock musician in a death metal band called Shadow of the Colossus, before graduating to country. "I started playing when I was 12, and we played rock," Dawson shared with The Boot. "It got heavier and heavier through high school, but I grew up listening to country, and that's how I learned to write songs. I would always do that on my own, on the side, just selfishly in my room, and those songs took over more of my heart, and I moved here to Nashville to pursue that."
Devin Dawson paid his dues as a rock musician touring for 300 nights a year, making just $150 a night. "We were literally playing heavy metal, screaming, super-fast, technical death metal," Dawson told People of his pre-Nashville life before he committed to country music.
After touring non-stop for five years, driving through the night to get to the next gig and sleeping in a van with a bunch of dudes, Dawson was sick of the rock musician's lifestyle. He decided to move to Nashville to study songwriting in college. While there he filmed a mashup of a couple of Taylor Swift songs with his Belmont University dorm mate Louisa Wendorff. The video went viral and earned Dawson a publishing deal with Neon Cross Music.

"Not only did it help me get into the eye of the labels and all that, but it helped me get a publishing deal, it helped me get a manager, it helped me get an agent, it helped me get all of these things," Dawson told Billboard. "It really helped everything. If that hadn't happened, I would still be here doing what I do, but it just might have taken longer."
2017 proved to be a breakthrough year for Dawson. He went on the road with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill as part of their Soul2Soul tour, clocked up his own hit single with "All On Me" and signed a record deal with Warner Music.
Devin Dawson first met his wife Leah Sykes while attending Nashville's Belmont University. They tied the knot on October 27, 2019, at the historic Carnton plantation in Franklin, on the outskirts of Nashville.

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