Peters Township native fits right in with Nashville music scene
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Kyle Ingram
Kyle Ingram performs at Moondog's in Blawnox, 2013.
EverSol: from left, Alphonso “Phonz” Wesby, Gregory “Ollie” Oliveras, Katie “Keece” Johnson, Kyle “Inky” Ingram and Matthew Coffin
Kyle Ingram performs with LocaL in 2014.
For musicians, the old saying about making it on Broadway applies to Nashville, Tenn.
“That town has a lot of great people who are very welcoming,” guitarist Kyle Ingram observed. “But it’s humbling at the same time.”
Sure, the Southern hospitality extends to folks who want to show off their chops. With one caveat.
“The first time I played there, it was an open mic,” the 2011 Peters Township High School graduate recalled. “I went to get up on stage, and the guy said, ‘Don’t suck, or I’ll unplug you.’ And I’ve seen him do it to other people.”
By Harry Funk
Staff writer
hfunk@thealmanac.net
Harry Funk / thealmanac
Kyle Ingram plays during Community Day 2006 at Peterswood Park.
Not Kyle, though, which comes as no surprise to anyone who’s seen him play since he was a student at Peters Township Middle School. Whether it was blasting Led Zeppelin licks during Community Day in the old Peterswood Park amphitheater or picking acoustic guitar with the popular South Hills band LocaL, he had a knack for wowing Pittsburgh-area crowds.
In Nashville, where he ventured to attend the music business program at Belmont University – he just earned his master’s degree – Ingram has had no trouble finding collaborative opportunities with fellow musicians:
- Hurricane Will and Storm Damage
- . The self-described “intense blend of blues, classic rock, funk, rockabilly, soul” is fronted by teenage Ohio native and guitar whiz Will Beeman, with Ingram providing his own six-string wizardry and co-writing music. The band has released an extended-play disc called “The Wire and Wood.”Cody Belew. If the name sounds familiar, Belew was a 2012 contestant on NBC’s “The Voice,” with performances including a cover of Queen’s “Somebody to Love.” Ingram has been his band’s guitarist, with shows taking him beyond Nashville to other parts of the South.
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- EverSol. The five-piece soulful rock group features lead singer and keyboardist Katie Johnson, and everyone has a nickname: She’s “Keece,” and he’s “Inky.” Well, considering his last name, bass player Matthew Coffin doesn’t really need a nickname.
At any rate, band members are working on original compositions with an eye toward continuing to build a following in 2018.
EverSol’s manager is Logan Crowell, a Belmont classmate of Ingram who introduced him to Johnson. Crowell is launching a project in which Ingram plans to be involved: HOME, which stands for Helping Our Music Evolve.
“It’s an artist accelerator, a place where musicians and people who want to be in the music business can come to,” he said, with opportunities for them to perform, make recordings, take lessons and network. “Nashville doesn’t have anything like it, and they’re very excited about it.”
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Publicity shot for LocaL, 2012: Kyle Ingram, left, with Zack and Leigh-Anne DeFelice
Fans of LocaL, which continues as a duo with Leigh-Ann and Zack DeFelice, were excited when Ingram joined his bandmates for a pre-Christmas show to a packed house at the Last Call Bar and Grill in Canonsburg. The three played together for several years prior to Ingram’s educational opportunity at Belmont.
“Leigh-Anne was really the one who really pushed me to sing,” Ingram recalled. “I didn’t really sing before LocaL. I didn’t want to. But both Leigh-Anne and Zack gave me a lot of courage and a lot of confidence in anything that I did, really. It really prepared me for what I was up against in Nashville.”
According to John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful, there are “1,352 guitar pickers in Nashville, and they can pick more notes than the number of ants on a Tennessee anthill.” Ingram’s résumé shows that he fits right into that mix.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s going to slow down yet,” he said. “And that’s a good thing.”