About
About
-
-
Spencer Hatcher has always believed in country music, hard work and God. Now, though, he also believes in miracles.
“I feel like I’ve experienced two miracles in just one month,” reflects the Nashville newcomer. “First, surviving a two-story fall, which I truly believe was the hand of God, and second, signing a record deal, which I realize is something that most artists never get to do.”
That record deal, with Stone Country Records, was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for Hatcher. Raised on a farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, in the shadow of the fabled Blue Ridge Mountains, the 27-year-old had been playing bluegrass and country music for almost as long as he could remember.
Then, just when the years of hard work had paid off big time, and he’d gotten the life-changing phone call from legendary label head Benny Brown in Music City, a horrifying accident could have cost him not only his record deal but also his life.
You see, Hatcher doesn’t just work hard at his music; he also does whatever needs doing at his country home. One September afternoon, while he and his father were up on the roof to look at a broken chimney that needed fixing before winter, he lost his footing and took a perilous 20-foot fall to the ground, landing on hard rock.
In shock, and indescribable pain, the singer was immediately airlifted to a hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. There, he was told he’d fractured his pelvis in three places and chipped two pieces of bone, broken three ribs, and suffered a pulmonary contusion to his right lung. But the doctors said it was a miracle that he hadn’t sustained any head or spinal injuries and could expect to make a full recovery within three months. Just three weeks later, Hatcher was already back on stage.
At that point in his recovery, he may have still needed a walking cane to get on and off the stage, but this is a young man who doesn’t like to let people down. Hatcher was brought up in the old-school rural traditions of taking pride, keeping promises, doing handshake deals, and never expecting anything you haven’t earned.
He started playing mandolin at the age of eight and was picking a five-string banjo in his family’s bluegrass band by 12. Hatcher’s mother played organ and piano at church while his father played guitar and banjo and sang in the church choir, so it was only natural that their son would follow in his family’s musical footsteps.
When younger brother Connor learned bass, The Hatcher Boys family band officially began. Backed by their father on guitar, Spencer and Connor spent Friday nights in middle and high school playing bluegrass jam sessions at their local community center. Soon, the family was also performing at lawn parties, fairs, festivals, churches and retirement homes. Still, while Hatcher’s roots were bluegrass, his heart was always in country.
“I was in bluegrass, but I was infatuated with country music,” he says. “That’s all I wanted to do and all I listened to. I loved older traditional country music. It’s what I call real country music.”
In 2020, Hatcher took the plunge and started his own country band, with Connor still backing him on upright bass and singing the “blood” harmonies for which the brothers had been likened to the Everly Brothers. Quickly developing a reputation across Virginia and neighboring states as an exciting front man, the fledgling country star was self-booking and playing more than 150 shows a year by 2023, often breaking venue attendance records.
By day, Hatcher studied business and bluegrass at East Tennessee State University, and when COVID-19 temporarily shut down live performances, he turned his attention to social media. In July 2020, a TikTok cover of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” went viral overnight, eventually earning more than 2.4 million views.
“I’d gone to bed having just 24 followers,” Hatcher recalls. “When I woke up, I had over 10,000 and my life was about to change. I’d been reaching out to venues about booking shows and that was when they started reaching out to me.”
His fanbase now includes more than 850,000 social media followers. He has surpassed 60 million views, including 8.5 million likes on TikTok alone. This led to a high-profile partnership with PepsiCo, with Hatcher co-writing and performing a bluegrass jingle in a national commercial for Mountain Dew. His hometown newspaper, The Daily News-Record, dubbed him the “String King” and he began opening for country headliners like Gene Watson, Rhonda Vincent, Tracy Byrd and Wade Hayes.
It wasn’t long before Stone Country Records came calling, and the newly crowned “String King” signed his long-wished-for record deal in October 2024. That same month, he released his debut music on the label, a collection of three traditional-leaning country songs, anchored by the feel-good focus track “Cold Beer and Common Sense.”
A timely musical balm for a divided nation, “Cold Beer and Common Sense” reminds us that neighbors should still help neighbors, and most Americans have more shared values than political differences. Where differences exist, Hatcher sings, “Let’s agree to disagree,” and even the two-steppin’ tune’s warm, acoustic-led production harkens back to simpler, less strident times.
The song was penned by country craftsmen Michael Wilkes, Styles Haury (Luke Bryan’s “Country On”), Jay Clementi, and Lance Miller (Tim McGraw’s “I Called Mama”).
“That message, that entire song, that’s something that I could have sat down and written out, talking about my beliefs,” Hatcher shares. “I hope people can listen and start to think, ‘This is exactly how it should be.’ We can agree to disagree, but you can still sit at a table together.”
Produced by Jason Sellers, Ilya Toshinskiy (Jelly Roll) and Mickey Jack Cones (Joe Nichols, Blake Shelton), the Cold Beer and Common Sense three-pack also includes “Leave This Town,” a swooning song about how falling for a local girl can make a restless young man think twice about quitting his small hometown. With sweeping fiddle, pedal steel and acoustic guitar, “Has Anybody Ever” is a toe-tapper that asks a new sweetheart how well she's been loved in the past.
Hatcher closely studies his musical heroes, including Cash, Strait, Presley and fellow bluegrass-turned-country artist Keith Whitley. But as this young old-fashioned gentleman begins his Nashville adventure, he’s determined to forge his own creative path.
“I've got an immense amount of respect for all my heroes in music that made this journey long before me,” he explains. “But I hope to build my own reputation as a real country artist singing real country music.”
Spencer Hatcher has come to believe in miracles, and just a few years ago, he could have been forgiven for thinking it might take a miracle for “real country music” to return to the mainstream. Now, though, with the cultural pendulum already swinging back towards traditional-leaning country, he could be just the right artist arriving at exactly the right time.