The Shelby Middle School student worked to learn a chord or two.
Now with the stage name of Pistol Hill he travels the country performing around 250 shows a year in venues the size of Dragonfly Wine Market to stages like the Don Gibson Theater.
He credits his Shelby roots in helping to navigate a career in music.
“It was an easy scene to grow up in,” Hill said.
Many musicians started their music careers imitating their favorite bands, Hill, on the other hand, began writing his kind of music.
“I was trying to learn songs from Matchbox 20. I was into the punk-rock music at the time, and I just could not get the chords,” Hill said remembering his rocky start. “I decided to write my own (songs). I wrote 200 or 300, and they were all absolutely terrible.”