Don’t be fooled by the title of Big Loud singer/songwriter ERNEST’s debut album. 

The tropics are the topic in Locals Only. But it’s not just about beach life, and it’s really intended for everybody.

In Locals Only, ERNEST brings vast, multi-genre influences to bear in his own brand of Country, establishing a vanguard outpost in the islands, with the sound of the ocean’s waves and a cannonball splash adding to the luxuriating chill atmosphere.

The beachy vibe isn’t meant to become a brand – ERNEST has no motivation to own creative space currently occupied by Kenny Chesney, Jimmy Buffett or Jake Owen. Instead, it’s a starting point, a place where the listening audience can begin to discover a singular talent with a singular life story to back it. Born in land-locked Nashville, ERNEST is an adoptee who’s never met his birth mother, who had a freak heart attack at age 19 before pitching a championship baseball game, and who existed on a creative track, working as a Country songwriter while sharpening his vocal flow.

It was an extended stay in St. John, when everything slowed down to leisurely island time, that ERNEST began to figure out how to combine his two different artistic personalities in a way that’s both lyrically clever and sonically irresistible. Locals Only heralds his logical hybrid.

“I had never really found myself until I got to the island,” he says. “Who does – really, at 20 or 21 years old – know who they are, what they want? But that was the first time I really chilled out. I was exercising, there was ocean water and music, and I was like, ‘Dang, it's really this simple and I'm just a happy guy now.’

“I have tons of songs about other things. I'm inspired every day by a lot of things. But as far as the introduction project for me, I think people are gonna really be able to know me as best as you possibly can through these songs.”

The nine-track Locals Only is brimming with engaging hooks, easy-going rhythms, Hip-Hop phrasing and subtle melodies. Lead track “I Think I Love You” threads spacey steel guitar alongside joyful syncopation, “Hard Way” teams a shiny brand of Country with a Celtic guitar riff and Pop-tipped harmonies, and “Brain On Love” exudes a trippy Maroon 5 sound while embracing a Childish Gambino sort of unpredictability.

ERNEST’s list of influences – John Mayer, Alan Jackson, Eminem, Jack Johnson and George Strait – explains the unique mixture, putting a modern spin on the stylistic mixology at the heart of Country’s never-ending evolution. ERNEST blends Eminem and Tim McGraw the same way that Jason Aldean blended Guns N’ Roses and Alabama, the same way that Garth Brooks blended KISS and George Jones, the same way that Merle Haggard blended Dean Martin and Jimmie Rodgers.

“I was drawn to any music, rhythm or vibes from a young, young age,” ERNEST says. “I don't remember a specific genre that caught my ear first.”

ERNEST’s entrance into the world was an unusual one. His birth mother – all he knows about her is her first name – put him up for adoption, and she chose the Smiths out of a bundle of couples who applied. They won out mostly because of the stability she felt her son could receive in a home parented by a father who taught high school and coached baseball, and a mother who sold real estate. 

The Smiths never hid ERNEST’s adopted status – they made it clear that he was chosen – and they supported his music obsessions through the years. When he glommed onto Bluegrass, they bought him a Flatt & Scruggs album and a banjo. When he took to Rap, they bought him the Space Jam album. But the positivity in the household didn’t stop ERNEST from inventing stories about his origins – always the worst possible stories, leading to rage over the horrible life he imagined he had lived.

“I created this whole narrative that wasn't even true, just based off the couple facts I did know and how I felt,” he recalls. “What teenager doesn't have angst? But I was like, ‘You're not my parents. You don't know how I feel. We don't have the same blood. Nobody knows me.’ They did a pretty damn good job for the hard time I gave them.”

By fourth grade, ERNEST had landed a burnt CD with three Eminem albums on it. His mom hit the ceiling when she heard the words her son was exposed to on his Walkman, but the music inspired ERNEST significantly.

“Once Eminem broke down that you can rhyme ‘orange’ – with ‘storage,’ ‘porridge’ and ‘George’ – you can make anything rhyme,” ERNEST says. “So when I write songs, it's usually music playing or I'm playing guitar and I'm just freestyling eyes closed, just saying stuff. That way I'm not overthinking and I might say something crazy I would have never thought of.”

In the meantime, ERNEST excelled at baseball, and it looked like his most promising future path. Even when he suffered a strange heart attack at age 19 – an unpredictable myocardial event, caused by an infection – he was determined he would rebound. The day he was released from the hospital, ERNEST 
insisted on playing a baseball game. Two weeks later, David Lipscomb High School won the state championship with ERNEST starting on two days rest. The heart attack had a mild physical effect – “I lost my curve ball,” he says with a shrug – but it had a powerful impact on his emotional outlook.

“I had an appreciation for life that I probably didn't grasp until a couple of years ago,” he says.

Initially, ERNEST still pursued baseball, getting a scholarship in college. But he spent much of his time in the dugout reciting his original lyrics to teammates, and he finally visited the coach in the middle of the season and announced that he needed to refocus his attention on music and quit the team – and college.

ERNEST wasn’t sure how he would pursue music. And at first, he just wanted a breather. A friend, Matt Royer, was headed to the islands with his dad – Robb Royer, who played bass in the 1970s Pop band Bread and co-wrote John Michael Montgomery’s 1990s Country hit “Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)” – and ERNEST tagged along with the family. He met Robb’s daughter, Delaney, and predicted within days that he would marry her. He did. ERNEST also latched onto the leisurely Virgin Islands pace with a surprising ease, eventually staying in the tropics for six months while he found a calmness he’d never experienced before – in his relationship, in his emotional life and in his music.

“I would spend most of my time sitting on the beach doing pushups and getting sunburnt,” he reflects. “I got gigs at little bars around the island on Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So I would play for tips during the week, take my acoustic guitar by the cruise ship area and just freestyle songs about people walking by and get tip money for lunch and a taxi to get back home until I had to go play my shows.”

Upon his return to Nashville, one of the songs ERNEST had written while still in college, “Blacked Out,” led to his first music publishing deal. And his hyper-creative personality ultimately led to a recording deal with Big Loud, who encouraged him to find his artistic path over the last several years.  

On another trip to the islands with Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley, ERNEST co-wrote an FGL ballad, “Blessings,” plus his own “Locals Only” and “Coolin’ (The Island Interlude),” setting an initial direction as his widespread influences came into focus.

That newly found cohesion is on display in Locals Only. ERNEST now takes on a relaxed artistic demeanor, celebrating Delaney in the easy-going “Keep You Close,” slipping laidback Jazz guitars into “Insane” and venturing into breezy Tropical Cowboy territory in “Sugar.” 

Locals Only emanates from the islands, because it’s the place where ERNEST’s happenstance life – the adoption, the anger, the heart attack and the reinvention – all found a peaceful, logical purpose. Everything that came before was merely a prelude to this new starting point for his creative journey, one that might begin in Paradise but could lead him just about anywhere.

“I make music,” he says, “for beaches, boats, backyards, bedrooms and bars.”