Filmore's head down, eyes up approach to music and the music business is refreshing. The country "newcomer" (a funny name for someone who has been at it for six years) has patiently waded through bad advice, bad ideas and great songwriting sessions to identify a sound that's sincere.

It's a mix of pop and country with better musicianship than you'd expect from a newbie to either genre and a stronger songcraft than you get from many veterans. "Slower" is his current single. The Filmore (full name Tyler Filmore)/Steven Dale Jones/Justin Ebach co-written country banger is a love song at its core. While not a vocal showcase, a trained ear will still find evidence of the singer's classical raising.

“‘Slower,’ we knew it was special right when we finished it,” Filmore tells Taste of Country with a smile, sheepishly admitting that the song's slowdown was inspired by the chorus of Luis Fonsi's "Despacito."

But he's not that sheepish.

“I’m not really asking for forgiveness. I just wanna do it my way — jump on if you like it,” he says of his approach to music.

Filmore started as a band then moved to a solo career before forming a duo and finally settling on being a solo artist once again. He chose to chop his first name from his branding because, "there’s a lot of Tylers in country music so why not just go by my last name?" It's a fair point. Tyler Farr may have the answer to the trivia question "Who's a classically trained country singer from Missouri with TF initials?" on lockdown.

With more than five million streams on Spotify, "Slower" is his most popular song to date, but both "Headlights" and "You Know You Wanna" have each topped a million streams. He's a bubbling under artist who is beginning to bubble over.

"I like building the business and building my brand and being very in control of it," he admits. "I’m sure I’m going to have to give that up soon, to a certain extent."

Giving it up doesn't mean giving in. Upon moving to Nashville Filmore heard much of the usual rhetoric: Do this, don't do that! Wear this, grow out your hair! "'Well, this is what a country song is supposed to be and how it’s supposed to sound. This is the format and ...' blah blah …"

He did grow out his hair, but shaved the sides and wrapped it into a man bun. It's his look and has become his signature style — something that differentiates him from other pop-friendly, dark-haired artists (like Sam Hunt, to whom he is compared to often).

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