Nathaniel Carroll has someone to sing about

By Rebecca Norris

College is one of the most stressful times in our lives. We all have our different ways to let down and take a break. For Nathaniel Carroll, music is his outlet.

Nathaniel has been involved with the music scene his entire life. He started out doing what some kids enjoy—singing in the bathtub.

Carroll admits, “My mom has tapes somewhere of me singing in the bathtub.”

With both parents as pastors, he was exposed to Christian music and hymns from day one. He sang in the children’s choir at church, and he had to try piano for himself as soon as he got back home.

“I used to come home from church and pick out hymns on a little toy piano as a young boy,” Nathaniel recalls.

Carroll began taking piano lessons in the second grade, and has been playing since that time.

Coming to Drury has greatly fueled Nathaniel’s interest. He feels inspired and writes a few songs about God, love, school, and even sleep deprivation.

“My move to Drury really sparked my excitement about writing music.” He explains, “I bought a guitar with some extra summer savings and would stay up literally all night playing in my room in the residence halls. I had to teach myself how to play, and that required time. I guess sleep was the easiest thing to sacrifice. I thought that if I wanted to write music, it’d have to be on guitar, because I didn’t have a keyboard or piano in my room.”

Dr. Rosemary Jackson, professor of music, voice, and opera, gave Nathaniel voice lessons, which helped him with his (at first) insecure voice and his projection.

During his two years here at Drury (he is a sophomore), Nathaniel managed to book some shows with Borders, Nathan P. Murphy’s, Billiard’s, the Rockwell, the Outland Ballroom, and other hangouts.

Nathaniel got in touch with the regional booking manager from Borders and sent her his CD. Through this contact, he got to play at the opening of the new Borders’ bookstore in the South County mall in St. Louis. While Nathaniel has come very far, he had to face the difficulty of starting out.

“I started out playing at the Thursday open mic night at the Village Coffee Co. in Chesterfield Village. I had five songs and no confidence. That was really helpful in that I was able to learn how to play a show without having 100 people listening,” he says.

Nathaniel has already put out his first CD, A House by the Highway, which is an eleven-track disc available online at www.geneqrec.com. He has recorded a three-song 7” LP and plans to record another full-length album this summer.

Writing beautiful music has its driving force. Nathaniel sings for his inspiration, God.

“I sing because God has given me something to sing about.” He adds, “I don’t try to write the music, it just kind of happens. Music is my way of understanding how I feel about things. Often, I’ll write a song and won’t know what it means until months later, when people say, ‘is this song about…’ Then I have to think about it, and eventually work through whatever problem that song addressed.”

Nathaniel has recently started playing out-of-state venues. Just last weekend he played a show at Illinois University and one at the WLUW independent radio Record Fair. For both shows, he was able to play with Bob Nanna, the lead singer of Braid and Hey Mercedes, who plays under the name “The City on Film.” While at the record fair, an independent label based in Chicago and Portland took interest in his music, and has stayed in contact since.

As for the future, Nathaniel knows it will involve God and music. He is hoping to make singing or songwriting his career. If that doesn’t work out he wants to be a youth minister and music minister.

Nathaniel has some plans for traveling this summer to California. He is excited about the opportunities that await him:

“I have always loved to travel. I have my foot in a few doors right now, but no big record deals or anything.”

Nathaniel may not have definite plans for his career, but he says, “God is the most important aspect in my life. So, whether I’m playing music or teaching Bible study, it’s for God.”