At six years old, Nick Lawson picked up a guitar. However, it wasn’t until he was a senior in high school, when his uncle passed away, that he began to play regularly. Inspired by his late grandfather, who was in a bluegrass band, and his uncle, Lawson performed for the first time at his high school talent show.

“After that, my family told me that I should definitely try to play music, which was super inspiring,” Lawson said. “I kind of had that in the back of my mind coming into college, because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Whenever I started playing more, I started getting into a little bit of songwriting.”

Lawson began writing music his freshman year in college.

“My freshman year in college was when I wrote my first song ever,” Lawson said. “I played it for a few people and I realized it was very corny. I realized I really needed to work on it. I just kept writing more songs and eventually got a little better at it, and people started to dig some of my music.”

Now several years later, lots of people “dig” his music. Lawson has now released a four-song EP which he has made available on Spotify, Soundcloud, iTunes and multiple other outlets.

“This is the first thing that I’ve ever professionally released,” Lawson said. “I wanted to kind of grasp the broad horizon that I have with the music. There’s not one specific genre that I’m categorized in … I was trying to incorporate a short EP where it had a lot of flavor and a lot of variety. I wanted people to hear every song and feel something different.”

Lawson describes himself as an outdoorsman and defines the outdoors as a key place for musical inspiration.

“I’d say the most that I get inspired somedays is whenever I’m swinging in a hammock, playing an acoustic guitar,” Lawson said. “It’s such a peaceful, relaxed situation to me, that it’s just so easy for me to release my emotions and just come out with whatever I want to play.”

The first track on the EP, “Float Away,” tackles various issues such as social media and a societal indifference to the problems of people in different nations. Lawson described the message of the song as one of self-reflection.

“The whole song is about trying to get away from the very meticulous small things that are always beeping in your head and all the things that you see on social media,” Lawson said. “Just things that aren’t super important in everyday life. I tried to talk about the emotions of getting away from all that and being able to float away into a place where you can feel very relaxed and very in-tune with yourself and with nature.”

The song was not only powerful to Lawson but also to an old friend of his. His friend had been in and out of rehabilitation and struggled with substance abuse. Though he hasn’t spoken to him in several years, Lawson received a call from him shortly after the EP was released.

“He actually called me up and told me that he listened to the song ‘Float Away’ … He said somehow it just spoke to him and it made him want to try and not focus on the smaller things in life that everyone else seems to focus on,” Lawson said.

As a business and marketing major, Lawson has learned many skills that have helped him gain a sense of professionalism, leading him to more opportunities for gigs.

“I would go around to different places, and I would ask to speak to the manager,” Lawson said. “I would show them flyers telling them how I would promote it all around campus … I just kind of showed them from a business/marketing aspect of how I would try and bring more business in if they had me play.”

Lawson’s self-titled EP is available now on Spotify, Soundcloud, iTunes, Google Play, Reverb Nation, Bandcamp, Youtube and his website, nicklawsonmusic.com. He plays gigs at High Tops in Bowling Green at 9 p.m. every Wednesday. 

Reporter Laurel Deppen can be reached at 270-745-2655 and [email protected].