Secrets are all around us, but Coleman.X’s music shouldn’t be one! The Nashville-based pop newcomer has been pouring his heart and soul into creating music that reflects his true authentic self. Coleman’s latest single “secrets” gives listeners a look at the emotions he experienced right after a breakup, and he wanted to share some secrets about it.
Here’s your chance to get to know Coleman.X and his new bop!
Music runs in the family!
Having a father as a frontman for a rock band, Coleman got an early introduction to the world he hoped to be a part of. He explains, “I grew up about an hour and a half from Atlanta in Alabama. I always found the idea of concerts very intriguing and interesting, and I always wanted to go to one. I’d help my dad set up… that’s what I’d do for my allowance as a kid, my dad would give me a $5 bill if I would go to gigs with him and help him set up mics and lights, set up the drums, and mic the drums. I was around it on a smaller scale, but I always found the idea of concerts with pop artists and artists you listen to on the radio so interesting and so exciting.”
Katy Perry = Major Inspo for younger Coleman
“I went and saw the Katy Perry movie with my sister when I was in 3rd or 4th grade,” Coleman recalls. “I loved it so much, and I was like ‘oh my gosh, I want to go see Katy Perry!’ When she toured, my dad surprised me for my birthday with tickets. That was the first show I went to. I remember we drove to Atlanta, and the energy in Atlanta is so great. Everyone’s so creative. I just remember seeing Katy Perry, and I was… I think I was 13 at the time. I started crying, because of that sense of… this is what I want to do. It was just so overwhelming, and it made me so happy. I was just like, I have to do this.”
Coleman got kicked out of show choir in high school
Coleman learned how to play the guitar in sixth grade, and also participated in a few plays. However, his time in show choir only lasted one year!
“The teacher said I had an attitude problem,” Coleman laughs. “She was very controlling about the way our hair looked. She wouldn’t let me sing alto and made me sing Tenor, even though I couldn’t really sing that deep. I was just trying to do what felt right for me, and have my hair the way I wanted to have it. We kinda butted heads.”
Coleman dropped out of college to focus on music
Coleman started attending Belmont University during the pandemic, but realized that school just wasn’t for him. “It was very nerve wracking,” he says. “I feel very privileged to say this, but where I grew up and in my family, everybody goes to college. Everybody graduates college. Everybody has a college degree, it’s like you don’t not go to college. For me to kinda accept, this isn’t for me and this isn’t my path, it was a really hard and long decision. I think I knew I had to drop out. I walked out during one of my finals. I sat down, picked up the paper, said I’m gonna come back to this, got to the last page and was like ‘yeahhh I’m out.’ I emailed the admissions office and said ‘I’ve gotta get out!'”
“secrets” was written on May 4, 2021
(Yup, Coleman remembers the exact date “secrets” was written on!)
“It’s so weird, I don’t even know why I remember that,” Coleman chuckles. “I think the session was named May 4.”
“secrets” was written after Coleman’s first big breakup
“I had just broken up with my first boyfriend ever,” says Coleman. “I really thought I was going to marry this person, and it was really hard and confusing for me. I moved on very quickly, because I didn’t really know how to process my emotions properly. I was a fresh 19-year-old, I was young and immature, and I pushed down a lot of my feelings. I moved on and went straight back into the dating scene, and I think it took him a little longer to heal immediately. Prior to breaking up, we were kinda off and on, because I didn’t really know what I wanted. Life felt very hazy, and I wasn’t super considerate of anyone but myself. I would always feel super guilty about that, because I know that did affect him. When we had the final breakup, I kinda wrote this song about needing to learn how to live life on my own.”
“secrets” also helped Coleman learn how to put himself first
“It may hurt other people, but not because you intend to hurt them… just because sometimes, things are for the better,” says Coleman. “It hurts initially, but it’s for the better in the long run. I think accepting that was pretty hard for me, and this was around the same time I wrote this song. It had been 2 or 3 months since we broke up, and I was starting to feel the breakup and starting to actually feel the emotions.”
“Also, putting my emotions first, but also learning it’s okay to feel things and to not be okay when they happen. You don’t have to push them down. That was something I struggled with a lot, like ‘feel these emotions later, you’ve got a life to live now.’ It caught up with me, so learning that lesson was very important.”
Check out “secrets” below, and say hi to Coleman.X on Instagram @coleman.ex!
