Ben Chapman

Ben Chapman was 16 when songwriter Channing Wilson, a fellow LaFayette, Ga., native, gave him some advice. “He told me, ‘You’ve got what it takes to be a successful musician if you wanna do it, but you can’t do it here. When you turn 21, you’ve gotta go to Nashville,’” Chapman recalls. “That lit the fire — I wanted to move to Nashville ever since that moment.” Chapman made frequent trips along I-24 between his hometown and his now-home for several years, attending songwriting sessions and making connections in Nashville, but he took Wilson’s advice to the letter and waited to o􏰀icially move until New Year’s Day 2019, shortly after his 21st birthday. By then, he’d also spent years playing “countless shithole bars and VFWs and Mexican restaurants — basically anywhere that would have me,” honing his self-taught guitar playing and learning what would cut through the noise. One particular spot still sticks with Chapman: a biker bar in Chattanooga that he compares to the Double Deuce, the club in Road House. “There was always something crazy going on, but when the music started, everybody would just stop and get down,” remembers Chapman, who drew on the experience for “Downbeat,” the title track of his new album. In the song, an ominous guitar line gives way to something groovy and infectious as Chapman testifies to music’s power to soothe, both interpersonally and internally: “When the downbeat comes, everything’s alright.” Downbeat, due out Dec. 13, is Chapman at his most confident in his musical style — “this southern-funk jam-band country thing,” as he describes it. Although he came to Nashville to write songs — he has a publishing deal with Hillary Lindsey’s Hang Your Hat Music, and artists including Flatland Cavalry, Shelby Lynne, Muscadine Bloodline, and the Steel Woods have cut his compositions — Chapman is now intently focused on himself as an artist. While creating Downbeat, he dove deep into the Band’s catalog and found himself inspired by the storytelling. “Th