All Photos: Alan Mercer
I have been blessed to meet some of the most talented people during my career. I learned about Leighton Fields and his music on social media. I was blown away by his soulful singing and sensitive song writing skills. I am pleased to feature this very talented and charming Vocalist on my blog this week.
Leighton Fields grew up in Lenorah, Texas in a Southern Baptist home regularly attending church service. His mother lead the church choir and they always had a hymnal on the car dash. His father was in a rock n roll band.
Leighton took an oil field job in Midland in 2013. He signed with a modeling agency on his birthday in June 2018 and got out of the oil fields. Realizing that he was losing his focus on music, he left the modeling agency.
Well known Music Producer Jason Burt produced his first EP ‘You Know’ which was released on Jan 4, 2019. Leighton chose five songs that showcase his soulful voice.
I met with Leighton in downtown Fort Worth to take these photos and visit with him about his life journey so far.
Alan Mercer: Leighton, I am just blown away by your music. You remind me of the great singers in the Seventies.
Leighton Fields: Oh man, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
AM: Who influenced you growing up?
LF: My biggest influences were Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. The feeling you are talking about comes from the work I did with the producer, Jason Burt out of Modern Electric Sound Recorders in Dallas. He’s incredible. They call him Funk for a reason. He added all the funk to the straight-laced stuff that I had. He added all the groove to it. My older style and his newer style met in the middle.
AM: I love that soulful style you have. I would say keep enhancing it.
LF: Oh yeah, that’s the only reason people keep coming in the door. I’m not a good enough musician to do that on my own, so I gotta do something with the voice.
AM: When did you know you could sing?
LF: That’s a funny story. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and I remember singing when my mom led the hymns at our church. I would sing little specials when I was around nine. I didn’t really know that I could sing but at fourteen, I joined a metal band. Then I was into the "screamo" type stuff. I was probably twenty before I realized I could sing a little bit, and probably twenty-three before I started getting any kind of confidence.
AM: How did your brilliant EP, ‘You Know’ come about? How did you pick the five songs?
LF: Man, I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I put out a record when I was in a Country band in my early twenties. In my opinion, it was a garbage record, but we put it out just to do shows. There’re songs on this EP that I wrote as far back as 2012 and some I wrote as late as six months ago. We started with a hundred songs and narrowed it down to five. We did it tournament style and knocked out songs until we were down to the last five and then I even kicked one off at the last minute because I wrote a new song that I love very much called ‘Complicated.’
AM: That’s the last cut on the EP and the one you have a great video for.
LF: Well, ‘Complicated’ is my personal favorite song but, it’s no one else’s favorite song. We recorded it live in the studio with me and the piano player. Artistically, it’s my favorite. The song that I want to push is called, ‘Love The Way’ but it’s too slow. Between me and the studio, they wanted to go with ‘Shame.’ I decided to put all five songs out and not really name a single and see whichever one took the lead, that’s the one we would push.
AM: I love ‘Shame’ as an opening cut. When I heard it the first time, I knew I would LOVE the other four songs. I don’t see any problem with people being able to relate to your music.
LF: So far, it’s been OK. People have been very gracious with me, so it’s been good.
AM: Leighton I know this EP literally just came out but I’m afraid I want more music asap! When will there be more?
LF: I can tell you the plans for the next twelve months. I have another single coming out at the end of February called ‘Mama and The Devil’ that is a Rock n Roll song and then we record another Ep in March and that will be out this Summer. I want it to come out on my birthday, June 28 and then a full-length album by the end of the year. Almost twenty more songs before the end of 2019.
AM: Wow! You are taking this very seriously and that’s awesome!
LF: Very much so, this is my life’s work.
AM: And you are staying the soulful rocker mode?
LF: The next single is very Rock n Roll but the EP that follows will be more soulful along the lines of “Love The Way’ and ‘I’m Down’ from the EP, much more stripped. There will only be five instruments and no overdubbing.
AM: Are you booking yourself out of state now?
LF: I am, I just came back from the Mile Zero Fest in Key West, Florida. It was unexpected. I was planning on going out there to help out a buddy and then I got here and ran into some buddies who had a couple shows and asked me to be on the bill with them. It was great! I also play in Louisiana a lot and I play out in Los Angeles from time to time.
AM: How do you like LA?
LF: I love going out there. Me and some buddies are planning a motorcycle trip out there this summer.
AM: Do you have time for any hobbies?
LF: My hobbies that take up all the rest of my time are motorcycles and stand up comedy. I love stand-up comedy and I always have.
AM: So, you have been a stand-up comic?
LF: I’ve done open mics from time to time. I almost left music to do that exclusively.
AM: Stand up is the hardest avenue of show business.
LF: Very much so. It’s the most vulnerable you will ever be in your life.
AM: Motorcycles makes more sense.
LF: Me and my buddies have been working on motorcycles since we were kids. That’s pretty much it. I do go and check out other friends who are playing around town. For the most part all my time is spent in the creative arts. I don’t really do sports anymore, but I do stay in shape.
AM: I know you grew up in Lenorah out in West Texas. That’s the middle of nowhere. What did you do growing up out there?
LF: I used to catch rattlesnakes. All the kids would catch the diamond back rattlesnakes. We would hunt them and sometimes cook them. We didn’t know ow to cure the skin, but we’d try making stuff out of them. We’d wrap it around a hat and make a hat band. Also, everybody played sports.
AM: You probably excelled in sports.
LF: I played football, basketball, track and field. We also started drinking early out there. Everybody does that. We had barn parties during our teenage years. Everybody got real good at sneaking out and running around town.
AM: Did you move to Dallas because it was the nearest city?
LF: Not at all. I moved to Midland because that was the nearest kind of big city. I lived in a minivan for a few years. My senior year in high school I was in a minivan. Then I lived on the beach in Galveston, South Padre and Corpus Christie. Then I moved to Lubbock, Texas to be in the music scene out there. I played music out there for a couple of years and got into a relationship, so I moved back to Midland and took an oil field job. I was really depressed and hated that job, then I got an opportunity to model. I went from being covered in oil every day to being in front of a camera in my underwear and having make-up on. It was weird but it got me out of Midland and into Dallas and gave me more networking for my music. My life has been a long, crazy, roller coaster process.
AM: You’ve already had a few lives in your twenty-seven years.
LF: Yeah, I was also a fire fighter in Midland.
AM: Well, I’m glad you landed in music. That’s the best.
LF: I think music was always the destination.
Follow Leighton Fields on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/leighton514/