Ten, it turns out, is the magic number. The Nashville-based Ten Out of Tenn (TOT) collective is rounding up alumni like K.S. Rhoads and Katie Herzig for a big reunion show at the Ryman in April, just in time for the group's tenth anniversary. TOT, which originated in 2005, predates Live on the Green (2009) and Musicians Corner (2010) as an outlet for rising acts looking to make music outside of the country spectrum. 'We started Ten Out of Tenn to showcase the ‘other side of Music City,'” says Kristen Dabbs, who cofounded the group with her husband, Trent Dabbs. What began as a collection of friends has since become a way for indie artists to share resources, gain exposure, and of course, have a good old time together.
'We put together a compilation of ten […] artists so that we could send them to labels and managers and supervisors in L.A. and New York,” Dabbs says. 'The compilation turned into a tour sponsored by Paste magazine and MySpace and just continued to snowball into a community of independent artists supporting each other.”
TOT has created several 'classes,” or ten-artist packs, to collaborate on an album, tour together, and perform as backing vocalists and band members for one another on the road. Each class represents a different mix, a new facet of the Nashville music scene, from folk to rock to electronic to pop. The collective has served as an incubator for the likes of Erin McCarley, Paper Route, Matthew Perryman Jones, Gabe Dixon, Sarah Siskind, Griffin House, Butterfly Boucher, Andrew Belle, and many more. It can be credited with putting Mikky Ekko on the Grammy stage with Rihanna and turning Joy Williams into one half of The Civil Wars. Jeremy Lister's Street Corner Symphony can likely thank TOT for making it on to NBC's The Sing-Off; other TOT performers have the shared stage with R.E.M., John Mayer, and Colbie Caillat. Altogether, they boast hundreds of film and TV placements, including Grey's Anatomy, Parenthood, The O.C., He's Just Not That Into You, and Saving Mr. Banks.
get tickets to the tot Anniversary Show, April 24 at ryman auditorium.
on sale starting Friday, January 23, 2015
'I believe that Ten Out of Tenn has also created a platform that has encouraged other artists to pursue their careers independently,” Dabbs says. 'It allows them to continue to create the music that they lovenot to be driven by radio or record sales, but more about being true to their art.”
A decade into its run, the Ten Out of Tenn family includes more than 25 artists, four compilations, two special releases, and a documentary, Any Day Now, about life on the road; more tours and TOT boot camps for aspiring artists are in the pipeline. 'It's hard to narrow it down to ten for another volume because of the amount of insanely talented artists in the city,” Dabbs adds. '[It's] not a bad problem to have!”