Philip Bowen interview with Hoppy Kercheval on Talkline WVMetroNews

Phil good morning how are you thanks for joining us um well thanks for taking our call your phone's got to be blowing up is it been a crazy few days ever since I found out that I was going to be like not just on the series but on the season premiere like it's been a really wild few days here wow and I know that there's non-disclosure you can't say a lot about what you did on the show so so I get that but let's talk about about you when did you you're a musician you played the fiddle you play other instruments or wouldn't you start uh playing music oh well you know I've been playing the fiddle since I was about four years old so that's that's my you know my first love musically I used to go to the Vandana Gathering every year and do the fiddle contest and stuff like that and then um in my college Years uh I picked up the acoustic guitar and a couple other things so you know I play I don't know I play mandolin a little bit Keys a little bit four or five things and I just really love the songwriting aspect of it so I've been playing music pretty much my whole life but definitely fiddle was the first for me why do you like this songwriting aspect and how do you write oh that's a great question I I love songwriting because I really enjoy good storytelling and I think that there's probably a lot of that to you know where I grew up Appalachian like that style of music where you tell these like stories that you kind of passed down and so I how I write typically is I'm kind of thinking on an idea and it happens to me a lot when I'm walking or driving for whatever reason I'll think of a tune and I'll get a voice memo going and then I'll get back home and I'll I'll try to write out the rest of the song So typically I just kind of iterate on like an idea for a while and mess around with some Melodies so do the do the words come first or or the melody or the tune usually the tune does like I'll do the tune and then I'll just start singing gibberish over the tunings on a tune I like yeah I get it Phil Bowen is with us and he's a Montgomery native where do you live now I live um oddly enough I'm about an hour south of Detroit so I'm in I'm in Michigan right now you're okay you're in that you're in that uh country music capital of Detroit Michigan the real hotbed of Americana and folk that kind of music is right here right here in Detroit uh yeah it's definitely a little bit cold for me in the winter but um yeah so I I got here through a job thing before all this music stuff took off the company I was working at in Florida got sold we got moved up here and said blah blah blah yeah here we are yeah so you're doing that but you're not are you how much are you doing professionally in music uh yeah music's really taken over over my my life in that realm so I I do I do quite a bit of uh session work and I do some touring now a lot of co-writing some down in Nashville maybe about once a month or so and yeah I've got to work with lots of great artists and my buddy Charles Wesley Goblin from our state like we have a spot coming up together on Friday so all like those neat kind of connections I've made through music and I still do I still do a little bit of the corporate thing remotely um as long as I can kind of hang on to that but it's it's been a it's been kind of a really insane couple of years I guess this thing has grown like it has yeah Phil Bowen is with his musician native of Montgomery he's going to be on America's Got Talent uh tonight on NBC and of course it's pre-recorded and again I know there's a lot you can't say about that but how did you get on the show yeah you know I I thought about doing it last year and it just didn't work out timing wise because I had also I just got invited to do the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville and I couldn't say no to that they don't really give you uh Hey if you can't make it come back and so I flew out to Pasadena I was out there for about a week earlier in the spring and uh it was just it was a crazy experience like seeing something at that scale like a network television production like that so it was a little bit overwhelming at first but you know like the West Virginia really came at me I was I was best friends with the sound guy the caterer the everything and trying to enjoy it you know that is that's very West Virginia like you talk before you know it you know the the everybody involved they're kids when their kids birthdays are I mean that's just that's us right right that's it absolutely were you how nervous were you I mean you're a pro you're a pro but how nervous were you when you when you actually did the show well you know I I felt it felt very real to me when I was at the the soundtrack The the day before I did the taping because instead of the judges allowed the executives from NBC are sitting in their chairs and they're just taking notes on you and stuff like that so to me that was a little more nerve-wracking because nobody's really saying anything and you're just you're just doing your thing and then the next day the performance part of it was a full theater like to me as soon as I start playing the first note I'm gonna I'm in a great place and it's almost like I'm blinking it's over so I I was feeling some healthy anxiety but like they made me really comfortable like I I had a really good experience with you know the the staff and the judges and stuff like that so I enjoyed it that's outstanding Phil Bowen is with us and we're going to see him on America's Got Talent uh tonight I'm gonna go back to you said you started playing field with four have you were you ever formally trained yeah yeah so um you know shout out to Dr Meyer at the uh when West Virginia Tech was in Montgomery he was the music Professor there and so I had got this in my head from watching an episode of Sesame Street that I wanted to learn the violin and my mom asked me like well I'll play the oboe but I can teach him music so for the first for the first five or six years of my music life I was getting taught to fiddle by an oboe player um but he he taught me he taught me how to listen and play you know really use my ear to hear what was going around me a lot so uh yeah I've had lessons all through you know all through the end of college I was doing kind of classical and that kind of stuff but I don't have as much fun with classical as I do with like you know Bluegrass and folky kind of stuff yeah um do you are you at a place now where you know all you need to know or do you still try to stretch yeah I mean it's it's I would describe it as like whether it's the sitter or the guitar or whatever like today is the best I'm ever playing that fiddle so far because I've been playing it so much so often and so there's always things to learn like like for example when I was at Mountain Stage in January I got to meet Tim O'Brien's fiddle player this guy named shag Cobb who I've listened to Forever and he did something when he was playing with Tim and I was like dude how did you do that he's like oh let me show you this little lick real quick so like things like that you never you know you never stop learning and that's what I love about music is that you can just you can just keep going with it you can have a watch party tonight yeah we're going over to a family's house nearby um and you know just kind of try to sit there and enjoy it you know and so we're gonna have a little watch party and I'll try to relax a little bit and just watch it and see how it all goes wow listen man congratulations uh we gotta watch tonight and see what happens you're not allowed to say I get that but I think all of West Virginia is going to be with you tonight as you appear on America's Got Talent tell me this though do they do they decide you can tell me this do they decide tonight like who's in and who's out or do they have to wait I mean can you tell them about the product I mean you're there like you know when as soon as you finish your audition because the crowd does whatever the crowd does and the judges each take a turn saying something and voting yes or no and So based on that you know what I would say is like hopefully I'll be going back out to Pasadena like later in the summer uh for the live shows because the the rest of the season Once these auditions are out of the way is all like you know live television it's a little bit more of a production so hopefully you know I'll be I'll be going back out there um in the in the summer but we'll see how it all goes well listen again you've already performed but no pressure all of West Virginia is on your shoulders okay I feel it I got a message from and out this morning yeah yeah I've been able to connect yet and so very nice and encouraging I have West one of the most support and love so I I truly appreciate it and I could feel it for sure yeah Landau Eugene Murphy um you know certainly a winner a winner there Alyssa and Phil uh good luck of course it's already decided but still good luck and uh thanks thanks for representing West Virginia the way you do and uh how about we talk again sometime soon yeah all right Phil take good care of pal good luck all right thank you sir Phil Bowen native of Montgomery