INTERVIEW: Mountaintops and Valleys with Tyler Lee Frush

The singer-songwriter discusses "Cosmic Country," faith, and staying grounded in the pursuit of art

Ahead of his upcoming shows, Art Seen ATL was incredibly blessed to talk to Georgia-based singer-songwriter Tyler Lee Frush, an artist whose intimate lyricism and mesmerizing guitar stylings have captivated audiences in Atlanta, Woodstock, and beyond.

I first encountered Tyler when his band performed at The Masquerade in March 2025. His authenticity and honesty mixed with his fantastic chemistry with his backing band stayed in my mind for months on end. I wanted to talk with him about his life, his creative process, and what fans can look forward to in the future. We moseyed around downtown Woodstock together back in August. This is the conversation that followed:

What or who inspired you to enter the music scene, both generally and locally?

Tyler Lee Frush: For music in general, [it] was Johnny Cash. I heard “Hurt” when I was in sixth grade, I think.

[nods] Those final records that he made with Rick Rubin?

TLF: Oh yeah, perfect. The “American” records. And I heard “Hurt” by him, went home that night, and I deleted, like, everything off my iPod. Eddie Van Halen, too, because I went and saw them and was like, “what is he doing with his hands?”

But then, locally, I was with guys like Adam Higgins and Daniel Shirley, back like, I'd say 2012-2013, in that realm. We would just play open mics and stuff, and I didn't know what I was doing.

[When I started] I was all about the playing and the technicalities. But the older I got, the more I realized, you could just have, what is it, “three chords and the truth?” You don't have to go out of the way to make your song technical or anything, but [making] it feel the right way. Once you start to understand that feeling of it, when you get into the shows and stuff, it really starts to turn into a real emotional kind of thing.

I never like to put artists in a box or categorize them, but what do you feel like your music is? Is it more bluegrass, more folk?

TLF: Somebody recently called us—I think it was actually from The Masquerade—"Cosmic Country.”

Oh, I love that.

TLF: We’re like, “sure!” It is tough though, when you ask a person, “what are you?” You're like, “oh, God.” My last record that's out is very much more folk. The one after that, the one's coming out, it's folky, but then sometimes not.

Say what you will about the social media age of music, but I feel like it's caused people to not really have to stay in some sort of category or genre. So many new genres have been created in a “Frankenstein” fashion.

TLF: Absolutely.

We’ve started combining two completely different worlds, and we're hearing stuff we've never heard before.

TLF: And that's the idea, right? I'm not like, “I'm a country artist, I'm going to go play country.” It's like, “I wrote this, it feels this way, we're gonna go play it." You can add your influences on top of that, right? At the end of the day, I didn't sit down and say, "Let me write a country song.” It just was what it is.

Yeah, I don't think you can set out to, like you said, write a country song, or “I'm going to make a Johnny Cash song.” I think retroactively, you can put those labels and vibes on it, but I don't think it's something you can decide then and there.

TLF: You don't sit down with the intent, right? It's something that just came out of you because you listened to it.

When it comes to performing, what's the most important way to strengthen the relationship between artist and fan for you?

TLF: That's a great question. For me, when I was younger, I didn't quite understand it, but the older I get, the more I realize that you have a voice. And when you're brutally honest with your writing, you know, and what you're saying in those songs, it can speak to people. So, what I've began kind of working on is keeping myself lower than, humble than, less than. If you go to the people with that kind of mentality, it really does help tell that story. It helps them through things, you know? Through my pain in the writing.

Relatability is a huge part of music. I think that a lot of people can find themselves in [art], especially in smaller local scenes. Do you find the connection stronger when it's in a performance or through a song?

TLF: I think it's a mixture of both. Depending on how you feel during the performance, what's going on in your life before that, it can make it stronger there. It has to start with what you're saying in your songs. Why are you writing it? Why are you saying it? What is the “need” you have to get it out? And some people don't have that, you know? Some people like songs, they just like to go out and play and jam and have a good time, which there's nothing wrong with that. For me, it's very much like a labor of pain. What I'm saying in that song, and when I'm up there, I have to relive it again. [I have to] be in that space again and be authentic with it.

Besides music, do you partake in anything else artistically?

TLF: I've written some things that I'd like to be filmed, but I really want to have the eye for it. I can see something that looks like a good shot, but then when I take it, I'm like, “why is this sh*t?” [laughs] You know what I mean?

[laughs] Yeah, I’ve been there before.

TLF: But there's a difference between art and product. That's what I keep going to. It’s like, “why are you making it? Why are you doing it?” And if it's to be famous, well, we're doing different things. But to appreciate what's been made just for the sheer fact that it was made, that’s what it's all about.

That whole art and product, “art vs. content” type of thing goes back to the whole social media aspect of it all. We see people mass-producing content in an effort to bump up the numbers and the followers. Why is it important to you (in this day and age) to be making authentic art? To be putting yourself out there fully and truly and just making it to make it?

TLF: One of the reasons could be [that] I'm a Christian person. The Bible talks about humility, right? Being humble in whatever you do. Don't sit at the high table, sit at the small table, and you get called to the high table.

When it comes to work, when it comes to artists and what we make, there's a tendency when you're making something that has an effect like music does...I think it needs to come from an authentic place. I’m not blind to the vanity, but if you're doing it just for the fame, then is it art at that point? So, I struggle with my own music to take anything and make it, you know, financial. I can't look at it like something you would sell. I can't look at it like something you would try and market it.

It's priceless.

TLF: It is priceless. It's a piece of me. When I see people do it for another reason, to make money or be famous, I see the vanity rise up like crazy. I see it as something completely different than what I do.

Music is very much a giving of your soul. It's a piece of yourself, like you say.

TLF: When I’m writing, I don't consider that a fun thing. It's a painful thing. Most of the time, it's a time with me and God, in a sense. And it's painful. For me, I go back in my past, and you take these real, honest looks at yourself and the way that you conducted yourself, the way that you like to live, the reasons you are who you are today. But sometimes that's not fun.

There's a vulnerability to it. It's like looking yourself in a mirror and kind of having to face those questions, those human truths...

TLF: And then get on stage and tell everyone.

That's the crazy part, having to put yourself out there.

During my first time seeing you perform at The Masquerade back in March, I was pleasantly surprised at the range of soundscapes in your music. Some tracks would take their time while journeying into unique sonic spaces, while others were much more fast paced. What is your process in designing a setlist for each performance?

TLF: Well, it's just like a song. Dynamics, right? If we came out and just went full force the whole time, it'd be exhausting. Not just to us, but to the fans as well. When I set up setlists, I want ebb and flow. I want fast and loud, and I want soft and quiet. I want emotional, and I want moments of relief from that.

I’ll say that when you saw us, [we had] 30 minutes, and that is not enough time, man. We cut songs and stuff. But it's always about that, right? The flow of the show. Being able to tell stories and have songs where you don't tell stories.

Of course. And it’s also, like you said, a show-by-show basis. Would you say that some shows it's like, “I have to get out what I perceive as my best,” or do you focus on the audience or other artists playing on the bill? Does that determine what kind of style you present to others?

TLF: It used to, in a way. It was “find people who match” and yada-yada, but it's become now “this is what we do.” It really does kind of depend more on the set length and less on who we're playing with. Because if you pull us onto a gig, you're going to get how we do it, right? I guess that would be more of that. It's less about who we're playing with, more about timing. How we feel, what we're trying to say. That's where the help comes in. It's like, “somebody else might need to hear this.”

I think that's so beautiful. I always talk about how art can sometimes be an escape from reality--we listen to music, watch movies, or look at paintings and photos to get away from our problems--but it can also be a comforting mirror of reality. Like you said, helping somebody else who may be going through something similar experience or different experiences.

TLF: For me, one of the main reasons that my music shifted into the realm that it is now is my grandfather committed suicide. He was my hero.

I'm so sorry.

TLF: Thank you. I mean, you never get over something like that. You learn to live with it, right? I'd say everything's a mountaintop and valley. Everything. It’s your spiritual walk, it's your sanity, it's your relationships. But through that hurt, right? A lot of my songs are about it. I don't go out with a verbatim, “why’d you kill yourself?” kind of thing, but I have a song called “What It's Like” coming out. It's the reasoning for the way life is now. This is what life is like after that incident.

I think a lot of people feel those kinds of things, so to go through them, talk through them, listen to it...to watch [the crowd] and be on that stage and understand that “I'm not above you. I've felt that same way. I just happened to be okay at singing and people like me.”

[laughs] Exactly. That's really beautiful and powerful.

TLF: Thank you.

It's interesting, that exploration of grief in and through music. Has that been part of a part of the healing journey with your grandfather and with other things? Has music helped in that sense?

TLF: Well, my next record coming out is called May 30th, 1993. It was the day I was born. It all hearkens back to [...] my life and that kind of stuff. But it was difficult. It was hard to write. I don't ever want to write something that hard again, but it was therapeutic. It was those moments of you sitting there...it's just you, God, and then the memories of someone you love. You have to sit there and work through it. You don't just sit in it. What are you trying to say about? Why say it? Should I say it?

It goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the relatability and people finding themselves in music.

TLF: Yeah, and in the in the ways you didn't expect either. I thought I was going to be hot as sh*t, like Eddie Van Halen. It turns out, nope, you're going to be singing sad songs for people.

I think there's some beauty in setting out to be one thing and finding something completely different. Is that not what life is in general? There’s a divine flow that happens when you're right where you need to be. When you're trying to be something else or running from a calling (if you want to call it that), you can find yourself almost in a creative blocking. But when you find what you're supposed to be, whether it's singing sad songs or doing whatever, I think it comes out of you so much more naturally and authentically.

TLF: Because you've seen the true thing on stage! I think the first time we ever played a song called "Panic Attack” was at that Masquerade show. That one has become…I don't want to say difficult to sing...I love to sing it, but it's all based off quotes in my life. When you're sitting there, you're not knowing when I'm talking about, but I am. There's that relatability. When you see me feeling something, I'm really feeling that thing. It can irk you a bit. That’s why you do it.

1000%. That’s the beauty in the best kind of art.

Who are some Atlanta-based/local artists that you’ve been vibing with as of late?

TLF: Hunter Blalock is the man. I mean, the guy writes songs like he was sitting there when you were arrested. You're like, “oh, so did you just get right to the feels immediately?” Yeah, Hunter Blalock's great. Static Dogs are up and coming.

Oh yeah, those guys are sick. Love their music.

TLF: Yeah, I'm really liking them. Cody Bolden has some things out that are really nice. There's tons of up-and-coming ones here as well. [...] Oh, and of course, Jonathan and Abigail Peyton are great. They’re doing fantastic, and their music's fantastic, you know. I'd say at the moment, Hunter Blalock's my favorite though. You can quote me on that.]

What's next for Tyler Lee Frush? Any new projects or shows we should look out for?

TLF: We’ll be at The Bird Room on October 25th and 26th. I'm also putting a benefit together show that will be happening soon for a grief camp for children who've lost someone in their life. I heard about it and was like, “oh, I'd like to do something for that!” The best thing I could come up with was like a benefit show. We've got tons of artists coming in for that. It’s going to be fun.

And there's the record coming out, too, but Lord only knows when that thing will be done.

Any final words for fans of Art Seen ATL?

TLF: Keep supporting, man. The biggest thing we can do is support each other. If you don't have financial support, what else can you do? Do you like what [Art Seen] is doing? Support them. Go out, tell them about shows, tell artists about them, and things like that. The stuff y'all are doing, like just being out here talking to musicians like me. There's no reason to but you're enjoying what you do. Support in any way you can.

Tyler Lee Frush plays The Bird Room in Ball Ground, GA on October 25th and 26th. Tickets can be purchased HERE!

All photos by Mikey Smith. Please credit @mts2.photo or @art.seen.atl if reposting on social media.