Tammy Cochran

(Q)- Your name please and where you call home.
Tammy Cochran- Tammy Cochran and I’m thirty years old and I was born in Geneva, Ohio. I was raised in Austinburg, Ohio which is about five miles from Geneva, Ohio.

(Q)- Would you please tell me a little about yourself, meaning your background and your singing career please?

Tammy Cochran- I joined a band when I was fifteen years old in Ohio called “Country Rain” and we played Elks Lodges and the Moose Clubs until I was about nineteen and then I formed my own band. The band was called “T.C. Country”. We actually had a job before we had a name and we suddenly got so many calls (to play local gigs) that we had to keep the name. (She laughs.) I played in that band until 1991 where my parents gave me the choice of either going to college of moving to Nashville. So, I wasn’t the brightest student in the world (She laughs.) so I decided Nashville. So my parents sold their house and everything that they had and we all moved together. In January of 1991. My mother was a private investigator in Ohio and then she became a realtor four years ago.

(Q)- Once in Nashville in 1991, what events lead up to your recording deal?
Tammy Cochran- When I came to Nashville in 1991 I took a lot of time researching and investigating how to get a recording contract. I did a lot of open mike nights and some demo tape singing, I was basically spinning my wheels for a while. In the beginning of 1998, I was singing at a club called the Broken Spoke and I met a friend who introduced me to someone who helped me to get into the door and actually get a recording contract. I did a demo of, “If You Can” and that lead to Alan Butler signing me to Sony Music and Blake Chancey (correct spelling?) produced the album.

(Q)- You certainly know what is country (music-wise) and what is not country (music-wise) by growing up and performing in the rural areas of Ohio and in the Erie county Pennsylvania region. It is a Midwestern hard core country music audience.

Tammy Cochran- It sure is country. In the little town I grew up in we had a dance hall and on a Saturday night, there would be everybody from the town there. Friday night was country dance night and everybody came out and brought their family. Children and all. Saturday night was, “Parents Night”. And I’ll tell you, there was nothing but country music in that little town and there was a real love of country music. I grew up with a lot of people who raised cattle and grew grapes and it as a real country upbringing. It was a wholesome little town where country music played a prominent role in everyone’s life.

(Q)- So, after all those years, with nearly a decade and a half in the making, what kept your dream credible to you in your heart?
Tammy Cochran-What really kept me going all of those years was my parents, they never once told me that I couldn’t do it. They’re honest and sensible people. If they really thought I didn’t have a chance at doing this (establishing herself with a recording career) they would have told me so, because they are sensible people.

(Q)- What was it like for you watching the trends come and go throughout the Nineties in country music while you were working towards your own recording contract ad the opportunity that would bring you?
Tammy Cochran- Country music goes in waves just like anything else and I think I am a traditional artist without being “retro”. While I love the old country music and in love the meaning of what true country music is, I also don’t think that I’m ‘retro”. I am about country music with a more contemporary production.

(Q)- It is hard to record a traditional sounding country album without sounding “too retro”, isn’t it?

Tammy Cochran- I do agree. It is really hard to make a traditional sounding country record without sounding, “too retro”. Yet with my album I think the team especially the producers, did a great job. While it is very traditional and it sounds like real life and it doesn’t sound like something you would hear from the Fifties. The first single I had “If You Can”, I got wonderful response from some people in radio and as well as with the fans, but I also heard responses such as, “This is too traditional. We’re hot, young country. We’re young and we’re hot.” But, I’ve recorded the music that makes me happy and is an honest representation of who I am.

(Q)- Does Tammy Cochran feels she “deserves” the spotlight on-stage or has she “earned” the spotlight?

Tammy Cochran- I think that I would deserve it. Because, I have worked very hard for it and earned it. Performing and singing is the only thing that I know how to do. If this whole thing doesn’t work out, I’m going to back at McDonalds flipping burgers. The main reason for me is that I think there are a lot of people out there (country fans) who are hungry for some really, really good music. I’ve been through some things in my life that haven’t been very pleasant. Just like everybody else in the world has. And, if you can sing songs that are about real emotion and move people, if it be about making them happy or making them feel sad, any kind of movement emotionally, then you have touched someone. And, that’s important to me. For an example this new single that I had out, “Angels in Waiting’, is a song that I co-wrote about my brothers who passed away with cystic fibroses. No matter where I sing that song, it doesn’t matter how many people are in the venue, ninety-five per cent of those people who come up to me after the show comment about that song. Because that song reminds them of their grandmother or brother or sister or close family friend. I even had an eleven year old girl once come up to me and say, “That song reminds me of my best friend who is going through chemotherapy right now. And you know, if you can make someone feel something with your music then, “My gosh!” You have accomplished a lot. Because there are a lot of people who try to tune out their hearts and feelings and to me there is nothing wrong with making yourself feel something within the lyrics and music of a song.

(Q)- Do you feel there is a dire lack of that style of emotional country songs in country radio or within the country genre currently?
Tammy Cochran- I don’t know if it is a dire situation or if it is totally lacking, but I do know there is a need of it.

(Q)- Performing is an essential element of your life as well as your career. That is perhaps one of the reasons you want to take your show on the road?

Tammy Cochran- The big crowds that I have performed to, there is nothing like the adrenaline that you get off of them. I mean in this past year, I’m a new artist and I never really thought anybody would know in public who I was.

(Q)- Country fans are knowledgeable about the genre.
Tammy Cochran- They really are! The fans are so warm and country fans are the best. While I’ve heard that said in Nashville so many times, since my single has been out there now I know why. Country fans are the best!

(Q)- Do you feel the country genre is ready for a major change or a shift in the style and that Tammy Cochran will be a part of that very change?
Tammy Cochran- Yeah. I want to make music that makes people feel something no matter if it is happy or sad.