One of Nashville’s most exciting up-and-coming voices, Kameron Marlowe has indeed been through some changes recently, from adapting to a new life on the road to breaking through with the Platinum-certified single “Giving You Up” and touring alongside some of country music’s biggest stars. That journey is reflected in the sixteen songs of his sophomore album, Keepin’ the Lights On, from the introspection of “On My Way Out” to the romantic turmoil of “Strangers.”
“I grew a lot mentally,” says Marlowe of the album’s emotional range. “I had a lot of hard stuff on my plate and I had to learn to be a little stronger and not take things so personally all the time. I learned how to fall back in love—getting engaged and fixin’ to get married—after going through a situation I wrote about on the last record. I’ve lived a lot of life in the past few years that really opened my mind to some new ideas.”
Born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, Marlowe grew up singing in church and formed a band in high school. After leaving college to help support his family, he began uploading performances online and started gaining traction. He subsequently moved to Nashville and released “Giving You Up” independently; when the song—written by himself after his girlfriend broke up with him, right before he was planning on proposing—went viral, Marlowe landed management and songwriting deals and eventually signed with Sony Music Nashville.
He released several more singles and, in 2022, put out his acclaimed debut album We Were Cowboys, which included the Gold-certified tracks “Burn ‘Em All” and “Girl On Fire.” Named to CMT’s 2023 Listen Up class and Opry’s NextStage program.
Keepin’ the Lights On was produced by Dann Huff, who has worked with the likes of Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and Bon Jovi, among countless others. “Dann is a mastermind,” says Marlowe. “Sometimes we only worked on one song a day—we wanted to make sure that they all got the attention that they deserved, and we really took our time with the sounds and the overdubs and the things that bring the songs to life.”
To Kameron Marlowe, if his second album is a statement of purpose, the culmination comes with the title track. “My family was never rich, we’ve always just made it by,” he says. “And for the first time ever, I saw my dad kind of be humbled when he lost his job of almost 20 years working in a magnet factory. He came to me and was like, ‘Man, I really don’t know how I’m gonna keep the lights on.’ This music industry is so hard, and it can mentally drain you and screw you up, but when I started my career, I made a promise to myself that as hard as it would get, I would always try and tell the truth and do this the right way versus just chasing whatever’s working at the time. This song represents that for me and that’s why it had to be the album title.”
“If I can continue to be this personal in my writing, I feel like it will connect to people in a deeper way,” he adds. “That’s all I want to do. And when you go deeper with yourself, you can connect deeper with other people.”
