It’s a strange kind of irony that Cole Chrisman had to leave Nashville to find out he was a musician.

He grew up in the hill country outside one of the world’s most famous music cities, a place where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a demo tape. But for Chrisman, music was just the hum of the car radio, the sound of a church hymnal, the wind sweeping through trees. He was a college athlete, a guy who spent his time in the woods or on the field, expressing himself through physical grit rather than words.

Then came 2018, his move to Fraser and a $100 used classical guitar ordered during a night spent in the Minnesota boundary waters.

“I don’t know how it came about, but I got on my phone, and I bought a guitar — the cheapest one I could find,” Chrisman says. “I spent another week or so in Minnesota, and then as we drove back to Colorado, I showed up at my doorstep, and there was a big box there, and it was a guitar. So I figured, you know, I’d better learn how to play this thing.”

Chrisman didn’t write his first song until 2022. Like many before him, he was spurred to create by the raw emotions of a breakup. Since then, he has finished 30 songs, a process that begins with just a phrase.

“I’m not a guitarist, so I can’t sit down and come up with some riff and play words off that,” he explains. “For me, it starts with straight words and flow.”

He describes his songs as built from observations: the way a sunrise hits the mountains or the feelings that emerge from a road trip. It’s a storytelling method that bridges the gap between the country music that surrounded him growing up and the “mountain music” of artists like Caamp.

In Fraser, Chrisman works a nine-months-on, three-months-off schedule. He has carved out a life that allows him to trade the “icebox of the nation” for the surf of tropical coastlines in the offseason.

That lifestyle has bled into his sound. Chrisman’s music has a distinct surf-rock flair layered on Colorado’s high-altitude folk. It’s the result of an artist who spends half his year in a ski jacket and the other half barefoot.

The open mic gave Chrisman a chance to test the structural integrity of his songs, a practice he carried abroad. But while he’s played for strangers across the globe, it was back home in a Fraser coffee shop where he first felt the shift from simply “trying out new material” to holding a room for a complete set.

“Liv, the owner of Simple Coffee, was the one who gave me that first shot,” Chrisman said. “She reached out and asked if I was willing to play my own two-hour set. Since then, I’ve been playing once a month (or) every two months for about the last year.”

That shot led to more local gigs, including a recent fundraiser at Hideaway Park Brewery, which was broadcast on local radio station KFFR. It was a milestone moment for Chrisman — not because of the radio play but because of who was listening.

“My dad’s never heard me play guitar. He’s never heard any of my originals, so he tuned in for that,” Chrisman said. “It was pretty emotional.”

Chrisman has a catalog of nearly 30 songs, but “Coyote” has become a touchstone for his local audience. Written during a stretch of cowboy camping in the Pacific Northwest, the song captures the “don’t hold back” philosophy Chrisman has adopted.

Download

Now, when he performs the song, his voice is likely not the only one you’ll hear. A chorus of devoted friends tends to join in from the crowd as he plays this local favorite.

Despite the growing local crowd, Chrisman remains wary of the “breakthrough” mentality. He isn’t rushing to get on Spotify or chasing a viral moment. He talks about recording as he talks about his songwriting: It has to happen naturally.

“If it happens, it happens. I’ll be open to that,” he says about a music career. “It’s not something that I’m necessarily forcing to happen. … I’m not expecting anything. But if it does, I’ll take it and run.”

If you want to hear Chrisman, you’ll need to catch him live. He doesn’t have music on streaming platforms, though he plans to change that in time. His collection of songs can be found on Ultimate Guitar.

If you or someone you know would like to be Sky-Hi’s next artist spotlight, email gsavaria@skyhinews.com.