Connor Daly

A couple of years ago, Connor Daly was living in his native northern Virginia and working an office job. On the side, he was writing songs and picking up gigs on the weekends around the region, a process and an existence that genuinely provoked the depths of his heart and soul. So, he packed up his guitar and belongings and headed to Nashville to see if his melodies, his passion and resolve, would ultimately stick to the walls of Music City. “Nashville is very competitive, and I definitely knew that was going to be the case,” Daly says. “But, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because there are so many different opportunities to play live and meet people, to get connected and kind of improve faster — you have to get better being in this area.”

Looking at obstacles as opportunities, Daly’s latest album forth-coming, is proof-positive of not only the improvement in his songwriting abilities since he left the Old Dominion State, but also this finely-tuned intent that has emerged as the follow-up record to his 2024 acclaimed debut, Colors Fade.

“This new music just fits the lyrics and the stories a little bit better — it’s more real and gritty, more raw around the edges and energetic,” Daly notes of his purposeful intent to not overly-layer and polishthe rough edges, the result of which being a stripped-down presentation of self.

“I started writing these songs in the middle of a big life change,” Daly candidly acknowledges. “And this new music is about seeing the positive when everything’s not going your way.”

Teaming up with famed producer/musician David Dorn at Farmland Studios, Daly’s new project paints a picture of the human condition — the good, bad, and ugly — of simply trying to survive and keep your head about water in a rough-n-tumble world of hard truths, principles only matched by the grandeur of the universe discovered in those moments of sheer vulnerability within yourself.

“The next thing I know, there’s water filling in and I ain’t got nowhere to go,” Daly weaves through one of the tracks. “I guess God made himself known, I’m living in a story the preacher told me down the road, I hear a voice whisper in the dark, you shoulda built an ark.”

“It can take a while to find your ‘sound,’ and this journey has been no different for me. I’ve gotten a lot more confident with what kind of artist I want to be, what kind of music I want to put out,” Daly says. “And [David] really understood what I was going for, just the overall sound and style of the record. I am in the next phase, and it feels like an important turning point in my music.”

“I’ve improved immensely in my singing and guitar playing, and especially songwriting,” Daly says. “And playing lots of [Nashville] writer’s rounds and showcases, and just hearing all these amazing songs and meeting different songwriters — it’s about getting inspiration from playing out more.”

And it’s that exact ethos and mindset which places Daly in that crucial realm of singer-songwriters who view life itself, and everything it inhabits and represents, as endless possibilities for storytelling. It’s about walking out your front door each day and knowing that anything, anywhere, and anyone can be the spark for your next melody — these sacred moments of time and place.

“Echoes of midnight, fillin’ the air, the sound of our love goes nowhere,” Daly rumbles on “Echoes of Midnight.” “Covered by the creek, flowin’ strong, the wind in the trees starts to sing along.”

“My best songs come out when I’m not overthinking,” Daly says. “I’ll just sit down with my guitar, play some chords and work on the melody, then more ideas will come out and I’ll start to figure out where it’s going.”

Raised in a musical family, that internal urge to create emerged within Daly early on. At first, he was taking piano lessons at age six, only to transition to guitar by 12. Daly and the six-string instrument became inseparable as he started writing songs in high school and booking shows in college.

“[As a kid], I would always ask my friends, ‘Do you want to come over and write a song?’ Nobody ever wanted to, and I was always confused by that, because it sounded like a good time to me,” Daly chuckles. “And that’s never changed. [Writing songs] is still my favorite thing, and now I’ve found a good group of people [in Nashville] that like to do the same thing I do.”

 

In terms of songwriting influence, Daly immediately points to Jason Isbell.

“His songs are just so honest and clear,” Daly says. “They’re understandable and everybody can kind of relate to most of them in one way or another. And that’s what I think songwriting should be — super honest and relatable.”

Beyond the impending release of album-number-two, Daly looks at this current juncture of his life and career as the inevitable next step towards turning dreams into reality.

“I truly love the process of creating something out of nothing, and then going into the studio with other musicians and making a song come to life, to create something that wasn’t there before,” Daly says. “I’ll always do this.”