WILL DEMPSEY

Will Dempsey didn't take the easy road to music. He took the responsible one. For almost 15 years, he worked in the chemical plant industry while the dream he'd carried since childhood sat quietly in the back of his mind. He thought he'd retire there.

Then a video of him and his son went viral. A dad and his kid, an unguarded moment that reached millions of people. He'd spent 15 years setting the dream aside — turns out, the dream wasn't done with him.

The music comes straight out of real life. Alarm clocks and overtime. A love that costs you something. The pride and heartache of raising kids. The grief that doesn't follow a timeline. He writes about those things because he's lived them, not as metaphor, but as memory.

He'll tell you he's just a regular guy who took the long way to get here. And every mile of it ended up in the music.