So you want to be a country-rock star?
The way Michael Christopher sees it, all it takes is one song.
Christopher — blue-eyed, square-jawed, bestubbled — of Penn Township, is backstage at the Crawford County Fair, about two hours north of Pittsburgh. His eponymous band opens for Chris Higbee in 30 minutes. But for now, Christopher is discussing what it will take, from both himself and the music-industry elites, for him to become a national act.
“It sounds cliché, but at the end of the day, it really comes down to the song,” he says. “You have to find that song that’s gonna catch. And then once you feel that you have that, or somebody feels that you have a specific song, that song needs to be out there — you have to find the right group, or right person, who has the right in, to help you get that song out there.”
Michael Christopher Palguta — he dropped his last name for his stage name — has been playing guitar-heavy country-rock in and around Western Pennsylvania, and further up and down the East Coast, for the past seven years. He estimates that the band plays about 100 shows a year, and calls summertime the group’s “bread and butter.”
“Strawberry festivals, pumpkin fairs, county fairs,” he says, counting on his fingers all the different types of events he’s played. “We also do private events, open for national acts. We will play at casinos, you name it. A couple weeks ago we opened for Big Smo, who’s a country rapper. We’re all over the map.”
He wasn’t always a country enthusiast: During high school, in Blairsville, Indiana County, Christopher preferred bands like Metallica, AC/DC and Journey. In fact, “I never listened to country at all,” he sheepishly admits. It was his then-girlfriend (now his wife) who made the introduction.
“She took me to a line-dancing place,” Christopher recalls. “And I was there, and I’m like, ‘Wow, this is actually really cool music.’ I just loved it. I loved the fact that the songs actually told stories.”
That was 10 years ago. It would take a couple more years until his first gig, at Bella Luna, an Italian restaurant off Route 22 in Murrysville. Since then, Christopher has released a handful of EPs and recorded an album of original songs, 2012’s You and the Open Road, in Nashville, co-produced by Kent Wells, best known for his work with Dolly Parton.
Besides recording and touring year-round, and approaching fatherhood for the first time — his wife is due in September — Christopher says he is waiting to hear back from, as he puts it, “an independent music group in Nashville.” The band would not necessarily be signed to this particular label directly, but would associate with its development side, which helps to push artists and their songs onto major labels and radio.
“But it takes some time getting there,” Christopher explains. “We are going through a bunch of [my] songs, to see if there are one or two, or however many, that are like, ‘OK, this is a bangin’ hit; we need to record this, this is the one.'”
While he enjoys writing with established industry hands — “She Stood Out in the Crowd,” off of his first album, was penned with one of Kenny Chesney’s guitar players, Jon Conley — Christopher takes a lot of pride in writing his own songs, often with his guitarist, Zach Reeder.
“I love, love, love, love writing and creating music,” he says. “We obviously like playing cover songs, but when you play [your own] song, that people react to, to me, there’s really no other feeling.”
“If you want to be a legit songwriter,” Christopher adds, “you have to tell a meaningful story.”
One of those stories comes in the form of the title track of the band’s new EP, “Keep It Country,” which has received airplay on local country radio stations. A driving guitar line and crashing cymbals set the pace before giving way to Christopher’s rich baritone: “This ain’t a song about tractors and corn rows / I’m not gonna sing about pickups and dirt roads … it’s about an attitude.”
It works as both a single and a party anthem — not to mention a philosophy of sorts. “You don’t have to be a farmer to be country,” Christopher deadpans.
But is it the one?
“Buckle Up,” the very next track on the EP, was produced by Reeder here in Pittsburgh. It possesses, as Christopher puts it, “definitely a different vibe.”
“It’s very modern, and it’s very — it’s got almost like a hip-hop feel,” he says. Coupled with lyrics about the weekend, beer and “You and me, and my GMC,” it’s a home-run swing at national exposure, even if it’s outside the band’s usual comfort zone of modern rock mashed with traditional country.
Despite the laborious path, Christopher would not want to be doing anything else.
“The way I set out about anything that I’m into in my life, I just hardcore do whatever I possibly can do to be the best at that,” he says, gazing toward his band backstage. “And that’s how it’s blossomed into [my desire to] make a career out of this, and go to Nashville, write with those writers, record in Nashville, push to radio …”
Fifteen minutes before he’s set to perform, Christopher excuses himself. Outside of the trailer, Chris Higbee, the former Povertyneck Hillbilly, takes selfies with members of the stage crew. Asked about Christopher’s quest to launch a national musical career, Higbee responds with the brevity of a man who knows the game all too well: “He’s doing the things that he needs to do: Write your own songs, perform them live and perform them good.”
All it takes is just one song.
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2014.
