On The Row: Chase Martin Combines Her Wit With Artistry
Chase Martin. Photo: Jason Myers
Chase Martin is a singer-songwriter from Charleston, South Carolina. She graduated from high school early with a 5.0 GPA, and she scored a perfect score (a 36) on the ACT. She was offered a scholarship from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, but that’s not what brought her to Music City.
The impressive 22-year old moved to Nashville at 17 to chase her dream of artistry, after catching the bug at a school talent show. Her parents supported her dream, with her mom traveling back and forth from Tennessee to South Carolina while the teenager hunted down bar gigs and songwriter rounds to play in.
“I was in the fourth grade. There was a talent show at my elementary school, and I signed up for it,” Chase told MusicRow on a recent virtual visit. “I came home from school that day and said ‘Hey mom, I signed up for the talent show at school!’ She was like, ‘Oh okay, what’s your talent?'”
Chase wanted to sing and play guitar, even though she didn’t know how to play the guitar. After finding a Yamaha guitar in their attic, Chase took a few lessons at a guitar shop in her neighborhood.
“I learned ‘Our Song’ by Taylor Swift and I played it two weeks later in our talent show. I was so nervous getting up on stage, I cried to my mom,” Chase said. “Once I went up there they literally had to fishhook me off the stage because I didn’t want to get off… I was hooked.”
Chase then went to an art school, where she was in the band and learned to play the piccolo.
After a few years of grinding through as many gigs as she could play, and building an Instagram following, Chase met RECORDS Nashville / Wide Open Music’s Ash Bowers, who helped her get integrated into Nashville’s music business.
Pictured (L-R, top row): Monarch Publicity’s Heather Conley; MusicRow‘s LB Cantrell, Haley Crow; (L-R, middle row): Wide Open Music’s Lauren Hamrick; Chase Martin; Monarch Publicity’s Cindy Hunt; (L-R, bottom row): MusicRow‘s Sherod Robertson, Alex Parry
“About two and a half years ago, I met Ash [Bowers] and Brendan [Rich] at Wide Open. They have been the greatest thing to happen to me since I moved to town, they’ve really taken me under their wing. They ended up signing me and they got me my first record deal and publishing deal. So 2020 was a pretty good year for me,” Chase joked. “They’ve been a dream to work with.”
Now, five years later, Chase has a record deal with RECORDS Nashville and a publishing deal with Endurance Music Group. She also has her first single out, a song called “Levi Denim,” written by Matt Stell, Allison Veltz-Cruz, and Abby Anderson.
“The first time I heard [‘Levi Denim’] I was like, ‘Man, this sounds like something I would have written, something I should have written!’ I was shocked that I didn’t think of it,” Chase said. “As soon as I heard it, I was like, ‘I have to cut this song. It’s so me.'”
“Levi Denim” is the first single that RECORDS Nashville has released, after the Music City office was launched by RECORDS head Barry Weiss in a joint venture with Sony Music in fall of 2020.
In 2021, the determined Chase Martin is laser-focused on writing, cultivating her social media following, and building off the momentum she’s worked hard for.
