RISON - Musician Ernie Halter joined Douglas Boultinghouse, Director of the Rison in the Fall Festival, along with festival founder Roy Phillips and RisonShine Community Development President Kristy Strother, for the latest episode of the Free Range Conversations podcast to discuss his upcoming performance on Saturday, Oct. 18, and his career.
When asked about his musical style, Halter admits it's hard to pin down. Boultinghouse noted that people kept asking him about the genre, to which he would respond that Halter sings everything.
Halter agreed, noting that the title "singer-songwriter" is a technical definition, but it's very vague. When pressed on genre, he prefers a simpler description: "I like to say good music."
Halter elaborated on his broad influences: "I like a little bit of everything. I like country music, I lived in Nashville for ten years. I love soul music. I love jazz, classical music. I'm Latin, I love Latin music. So I'm kind of a mutt, I guess."
Boultinghouse praised his versatility, stating, "He can do R&B flawlessly, he can do jazz, he can do country, he can do pop. I'm like, you throw it at him. He can do it and do it well."
Halter shared his background, stating he grew up in Southern California. His path eventually led him to Nashville, where he lived for a decade. The move happened after he and his wife—whom he met while on tour in Indiana—had twin girls.
"When they were born, LA got really, uh, expensive... and so we ended up moving to Indiana briefly to kind of gather ourselves. And then from Indiana, we went to Nashville."
It was in Nashville where Halter and Boultinghouse first crossed paths through a mutual friend named Mandy. Boultinghouse additionally connected Halter with friend and country artist Julie Roberts, who has been a past guest at the festival in Rison.
Halter and Roberts collaborated on songs that ended up on Roberts’ album “Good Wine and Bad Decisions” and Halter’s album “Labor of Love.”
Halter discussed his experience in the co-writing world. He has also written with other artists like soul singer-songwriter Alan Stone and many country writers.
He reflected on the difficulty of getting songs recorded by other artists: "If you're looking at songs that I've had released, like Brett Young and I did a bunch of writing before he started taking off. Of course, none of that made his record."
However, Halter did have a new song cut to announce during the podcast: "I actually I'm getting a cut coming up. Straight No Chaser, they're doing a Christmas record and Hunter Hayes is going to sing the song that we wrote."
He also revealed a long-standing personal relationship with a pop superstar: "I met Justin [Bieber] when he was 14 or 15... I met him when he was a kid... And I've known him since then."
Halter was part of the creative team in New York for Bieber's most recent album but noted, "Unfortunately, nothing that I contributed to made the record."
He called the experience "very eye opening" and "very educational."
Halter spoke about his successful transition to independent funding models, including his recently concluded "52 songs club" Kickstarter campaign. The project eventually resulted in 55 songs, as he wrote three more in an attempt to beat a record set by another festival performer, Charles Esten.
He credits his loyal following for his career longevity, citing author Seth Godin: "If you have a thousand die hard fans, you could have a career for life."
He added, "I've been very thankful to have that opportunity to have some loyal fans that have followed me for the last 20 years."
As for future plans, Halter said he has "easily a record, maybe two records worth of material" from the 55 songs he wrote during the project.
He noted that being an independent artist means constant effort. "If you're not signed to a label, you're essentially doing a lot of on your own," he said. "We have to wear a lot of hats as an independent artist. I don't feel like we ever get to a point where we stop hustling, just to keep moving forward."
Halter compared the creative work of being an artist to that of the work the organizers put into creating the Rison in the Fall Festival.
"You guys are creators as well because you're creating this event,” he said.
Having previously organized events, Halter praised the dedication and all the little things that have to be taken care of leading up to the event.
The hosts shared the challenges of organizing the Rison in the Fall Festival, which is celebrating its 35th year overall and was morphed into a music festival in 2019.
Boultinghouse joked about the immense planning involved, including the last-minute realization that they had forgotten to reserve the portable restrooms.
In a moment of levity, Halter recommended the organizers watch the infamous Fyre Festival documentary, calling the event "a historic nightmare, a disaster." Halter encouraged, "You guys are the anti-Fyre Festival,” highlighting the things Rison is doing well.
Halter said he is excited to be coming to Rison and performing for the crowd. He also expects that many people may not know his music, so he plans to tell stories in between songs to share more of his journey.
Halter will take the stage at the festival at 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18.
During the podcast, Halter and the hosts also discussed the changes in music over the past few decades, and how genres blend together, and why everyone seems to agree that 90s music, specifically country, was some of the best.
The full episode of the Free Range Conversations podcast is streaming now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and ClevelandCountyHerald.com
Past episodes with this year’s other guests including Laura Caroline, Copper Flats, and Thom and Coley, are also available to stream.
Boultinghouse noted that he hopes to record an episode with this year’s headliner Sunny Sweeney prior to the festival.
“This is the first year our headliner is currently doing a full tour of dates, where our festival is just one of many shows in a row,” he said, noting Sweeney’s incredibly busy schedule of touring, recording and hosting shows for Sirius XM radio channels.
“If we can find a time to record with Sunny before she arrives in Rison, we’ll share the episode online as part of the Cleveland County Connection newsletter,” he said.