_{By Joseph Hawkins}

It all started with an iPod. You know, one of those 40-gig ones from 2004? With the black and white screen and the click wheel? Garon Brett does. He vividly recalls a formative experience involving one as a young kid.

“I remember coming home and putting every CD I could find in the house on it,” he says. “I took my dad’s old Sony studio headphones and sat up listening until 3:30 AM to things like Take 6, Brian McKnight, John Legend, and Kirk Franklin. Music wasn’t my own until that night.”

Most of us can relate, calling on similar experiences where the euphoria of music takes over and we find ourselves moved – physically, emotionally, spiritually, you name it. Brett says it’s his entire purpose as a musician to capture and create more moments that move as many people as possible. He wants to move you.

Speaking about his journey from music lover to musician-who-moves-people, he says, “I started really pursuing music in 2012, about the same time as I began experiencing anxiety and depression – which I had never dealt with before. Part of me went into hiding. Music has been the process and means of coming back out of my shell. But parts of myself were still hiding as I was trying to work through the emotional and mental struggle.”

Moving from Missouri to Utah in 2017, Brett began studying Commercial Music at BYU. His emphases were songwriting and sound engineering. He credits that educational time and experience for bringing him together with the musicians that constitute most of his working relationships. And it’s no wonder he talks of relationships – Brett is huge on collaboration.

“Co-writing forced me to learn how to work with people and became part of my motivation – it became an automatic reflex,” he explains. “People need to feel like they’re not doing everything alone. I’ve done that too, and consistently fall back into that trap and it burns you out so fast.”

Brett loves collaborating with others. His philosophy is that ultimately, every musician needs to choose between doing everything on their own or being brave enough to share their journey with other people.

“As a musician, you’re going to identify what you want to do. You have to choose if you’re going to fill the gap between where you are and ‘the thing,’ or if you’re going to have other people fill that gap with you,” he says. “I’ve personally identified that there are a lot of areas that I don’t have the time or maybe the desire to fill the gap. There are certain aspects I want to fill and want to be better at. But in other aspects, I’m okay working with someone else – where that’s their passion. I want to see [collaborations] flourish, and then create something that neither one of us could have created by ourselves. And that’s the really, truly gratifying thing – stepping into a room and not having a concept or even a melodic idea. You don’t know what it’s going to be, and then you come out with a song. It’s one of the absolute coolest processes to me.”

Why does he collaborate? Why does he share his personal outlet with others? It all comes back to movement. “I want to create things that move me and move people. I love a pull-your-heart-out lyric,” he says. “A snapshot of life during a concert. I want to create an experience where you really experience life as you listen. I want to create things that can hopefully bless the lives of other people. Hopefully, I’m genuinely creating things that are actually helpful.”

Anyone who sits down for an evening with Garon Brett – whether on Spotify or in concert – knows this to be true. His latest single, “Medicine,” features some of the best production I’ve heard coming out of Provo and is (as the kids call it) a bop-and-a-half.

Make sure to follow Garon Brett on Instagram and stream “Medicine” below. You couldn’t spend an evening with a cooler dude.