An NPR All Songs Considered Best Album pick noting, “…he is making beautifully crafted music that any classic country fan would love,” Housman co-wrote all 13 tracks on the album, offering a musical bridge for a divided time. Called “irresistible” by Rolling Stone, with “Good Morning America” praising him for “making waves,” and Billboard hailing him as a beacon for “outcasts in the genre,” Housman’s message is a simple one: “Country music is for everyone.” Given the over 5 million streams and 275,000 online followers for an independent artist, it's clearly a message that the world wants to hear.
The native mid-westerner’s country credentials go beyond his music though. He was born and raised in Hanston, Kansas, the epitome of small-town America with a population of just 200. His childhood was rooted in the rural and the conservative, growing up on a farm and living for Country music. “At 7 years old, I loved going to Country jam sessions with my family. I would get mesmerized by this guy Tom, who played fiddle,” recounts Housman, “At Christmas, I got a fiddle from Santa, and I picked it up and ran from there.”
His talent was quickly apparent, and by the age of 8, he was performing with the family band, playing in venues across the state. Over time he would add other strings to his bow, learning to sing, play guitar, upright bass, piano, saxophone, spoons, banjo, and even whistle at a competitive level.
“I played a ton of shows as a kid,” he recalls, “but my relationship with Country changed when I turned 18 and I came out as gay.” He moved to Nashville to attend Belmont on an academic scholarship and stopped playing for some time. “I thought, ‘I can continue to be comfortable and out and gay, or I can do country music, but I definitely can’t do both.’" For a while, that was that.
However, the world of country music never quite let Housman go. After years working behind the scenes doing copyright and licensing for other artists, Housman couldn’t ignore the call of the stage anymore. It was a freak accident that brought him back into the fold. In 2014, Housman broke his neck, a shock to the system that made him realize he hadn’t moved to Nashville to just work on other peoples' music. After a brief stint in a duo, he began writing and performing at colleges across the country solo.
In fact, a number of tracks on his debut album have already been resonating with fans. Title track “Blueneck,” a welcoming homespun manifesto that proudly declares “Y’all means all,” went viral on TikTok taking the burgeoning singer from 72 followers to hundreds of thousands overnight and hit No. 1 on the iTunes country chart, No. 4 on iTunes all-music chart, and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard Digital Country chart.
Other previously released tracks like “Bible Belt,” an examination of religious trauma, and the fable-like “Drag Queen,” which celebrates a teacher of the year who goes from Michael to Michelle after hours, continued the dialogue between his genre and his lived experience. The clever wordplay and radio-friendly pop-country sounds made these songs instant hits with his rapidly expanding fanbase and expedited the release of his debut album.
“It feels like my life’s work. The thing I’ve been making since I picked up the fiddle at 7,” Housman effuses “It’s pretty upbeat and positive but it’s also my soul, my truth.”
The album’s recent release “Guilty as Sin” saw its music video premiere in Times Square through CMT with Queerty calling it "defiantly gay" and generating 350,000 views in just three weeks. A special moment to be sure for an independent artist. However, for Housman, the greatest gift has been the response from fans.
“I see a lot of people out there who grew up loving country music, but gravitated away from it because they didn’t feel welcome there anymore,” shares the tattooed troubadour. “When those people tell me I helped them finally feel seen in the genre…that’s already living the dream as far as I’m concerned.”
Housman is one of six participants in this year’s Equal Access Development Program, an intensive artist and management training initiative created by CMT and management company mtheory to support underrepresented voices in country music.
For more information, visit ChrisHousman.com and follow along on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @ChrisHousmanMusic and on X @ChrisHousman.
