We met up Woth Rio in the Texas hill country, Rio had this to say
“I grew up shooting guns and playing in the creek behind my Mammaw and Pappaw's house. When other kids were playing with tonka trucks, I was driving full-size backhoes around the property. There were all kinds of wildlife creatures back there that we would catch, and play with with. In junior high and high school, I was in ag and an active member and officer in my FFA chapter. I even did the FFA talent show. A few years after high school, when college wasn't going my way, I started working on a private hunting ranch in Rock Island, Texas. I worked cattle, fallow deer, axis deer, and whitetail deer. I seeded fields, worked fence, and spent more than enough time with a chainsaw and wood chipper.
Music has always been there though. Mammaw got me piano lessons when I was 5, and I was hooked. I picked it up, and ran with it. I wrote my first song about my 3rd grade teacher, and got my whole class to sing it for her at the talent show. Once junior high was starting I had purchased my first guitar, because "chicks dig guitar", and my whole world opened up. I barely made it through school because, even though I had the brains, I didn't care about anything but music, writing it, and playing it. I played in church for years, and that's where I did a lot of growing, but It was when I won my high school talent show playing Freebird behind my head that I was lost to rock and roll forever. A girl I'd never met baked me some cookies, and brought them to me the next day, and that didn't hurt either lol
In the fields, and in the woods I could hear music in the air, and through the trees.
On the stage when I'm playing I close my eyes, and I'm back there again looking to the stars, and headed into space.”
Check out Rio on Spotify:
open.spotify.com/artist/1whM4...
This video was created with permission from the artist