Cole Phillips humbly refers to himself as “a kid from Oklahoma.” However, that barely scratches the surface. The 18-year-old singer, songwriter, and guitarist tells the kind of stories that cut right to the core. Over bare country instrumentation, his vocals resound at levels of pain, experience, and wisdom that far belie his age. Growing up, he discovered Hank Williams, JR. and David Allan Coe through his father and Dierks Bentley and Zac Brown Band via his mother. Eventually, he embraced Metallica, Nirvana, and AC/DC as well as red dirt favorites such as Zach Bryan and Cody Jinks on his own. His parents divorced and remarried, expanding the family and making Cole “the oldest of eight kids.” In high school, he picked up a guitar to learn Zac Brown songs. Around the same time, he endured the claustrophobia of smalltown life with the only potential out being a future welding on oil rig somewhere far away. In the haze of a hangover, he penned what would become his breakthrough track “Drinking Alone.” The single highlights his gritty right-from-the-gut delivery and straight-from the-heart songcraft. It went from being his “class song” to organically exploding on TikTok with millions of views. In 2024, the success translated to DSPs with 25 million streams and over 4 million YouTube views. Meanwhile, he inked a deal with RECORDS, LLC. Now, he chronicles where he’s from and where he’s going on a series of singles such as “Midnight Train” and “No Town” for RECORDS, LLC and an album to come.
