Last August, Oliver Anthony took the country world by storm when he uploaded “Rich Men North of Richmond” to YouTube. He then went on to become the first artist to debut as number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart without previously appearing on any other Billboard chart.
That video now has 134 million views to date, but it hasn’t changed his mindset about the business side of things. He said, “People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off 8 million dollar offers . . . I don’t want to play stadium shows. I don’t want to be in the spotlight.”
Then he said, “I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with millions of people because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung.”
And it seems like he may stay an independent artist forever, because when asked about record labels, he said, “I’d rather not have a career than feed those people. I hate the way some of those people treated artists . . . They look at them like a big dollar bill, and they don’t give a [S-word] about anything they do.”
Oliver is a trailblazer in every sense of the word. He’s so far rejected fame and fortune, and stayed true to himself. And you can tell when you listen to his music, this man feels every word that he sings.
And he has a really refreshing take on his new found “celebrity” status. Quote, “I’ll just do it myself and stay true to myself . . . and if it doesn’t work out, then I still got to experience what I did . . . Even if I had to go back to my old job, I wouldn’t even be upset.”