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Through countless days of touring, and traveling back and forth across the state, Texas country musician Kyle Park remembers vividly how his life changed at a young age and when his music career began during high school.
When Park was 12 years old, his father passed away while deer hunting with him in Mexico. This event changed Park’s life drastically.
“I think it is something that has shaped me entirely,” Park said. “I wouldn’t have started playing music. I was 12, it definitely created my independence.”
Music became an outlet for Park throughout high school. “The first song I ever wrote was about my father,” Park said. “I guess that was my introduction to writing music.” As a self taught musician, Park began with a guitar pick and small parts of songs. “I started picking Metallica and Led Zeppelin songs at first,” Park said. “I didn’t have a teacher, I just learned. Someone suggested I learn chords and that’s when I started playing country music. I had my first gig at 15, and my cousin had to drive me.”
Although Park was not involved in FFA in high school, he was heavily involved in sports including football, basketball and baseball.
“My baseball coach told me to pick between baseball and music my senior year,” Park said. “I wasn’t getting paid to play baseball, but I was getting paid to play music. I did a gig almost every Friday and Saturday night of my senior year.”
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Park began his music career playing small gigs where he said it seemed no one paid attention. But as an up and coming Texas country artist Kyle Park has rapidly grown in popularity.
“The fans are the most unique thing about Texas country,” Park said. “You couldn’t find that anywhere else. The fans are so infatuated with the music. They want to push their own artists so much, it almost doesn’t matter how good or bad they are.”
Country may be the type of music Park writes, but he says he explores various types of music and listens to various artists.
“I have listened to country since the day I remember listening to music,” Park said. “But I don’t listen to the same kind of music all the time because I don’t want to write the same kind of songs. I listen to everything from Queen, Rush, Allison Kraus, Led Zepplin to the Beatles. I like to write different songs, and the way I find different songs is to listen to different styles of songs.”
Park said the basis for most of his songs are from life experiences. “Writing from the heart is the most important,” Park said. “I have written some songs from personal experiences but I have written songs that are like stories. Where it wasn't necessarily me, but I put myself in another persons shoes.”
When asked about his biggest dream for his music career Park said playing at the 82nd annual Texas state convention was a perfect example of his dream.
“Really this is on the way to doing what I want to do,” Park said. “It’s some thing to play for 10,000 people and 9,000 people don’t care. It’s a complete other thing to play for 10,000 people who have at least heard of you and care to see you. If I could do this show every day and every year, that would be the answer to the question of what I dream of for my career. To be here playing for 10,000 high school students, I mean man this is awesome.”
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