By Dalila Bevab
Aspiring to headline Coachella one day is freshman business administration major Adam Thomas. The Louisville native signs his Bellarmine emails with an autographed signature that he one day hopes will adorn photos and posters for diehard fans.
Thomas has been involved in music since his babysitter at two years old would play Elvis Presley’s music all the time. “I got completely enamored with his style and all the people throwing themselves at them, all that kind of good stuff,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I want to be like that.’”
Thomas said he learned how to talk by singing. He took piano lessons when he was six years old and is self-taught on the guitar, drums, harmonica and bass. Thomas also produces and writes his own music.
“A lot of people say I have the sound of Harry Styles or Tom Petty, and they’re really great artists so I take that very heavily,” he said.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s awesome!’ to be compared to Harry Styles, which I mean if you saw his Coachella performance, that was probably one of the best performances I’ve ever seen,” Thomas said. “So, for someone to say, ‘You have the same kind of aura as that,’ I’m like, ‘Okay, yeah! Compare me to one of the greats, I guess,’” he said.
Thomas said he looks up to the likes of Harry Styles and Elvis Presley, but he said he doesn’t see himself being part of that superstar stature.
“I want to have a family when I grow older. I don’t want it to be like, we’re walking down the street and they’re swamped and can’t live their normal lives, so I want it to be comfortable for them,” he said.
Eventually, Thomas said he hopes to move to Hollywood to pursue his music career, but he said he wants to finish his education at Bellarmine before making the move. He said, “Louisville has always been my home, and it has a sweet spot.”
He said he aspires to be a lawyer if music doesn’t work out and is considering attending the University of California, Los Angeles law school.
In the meantime, Thomas said he’s working on a new album. He said he had Covid in November 2020, and he’s experienced effects that prevented him from writing music.
“I was like, ‘Oh, it's over, I can’t write anymore ever again,’ but then some songs would come out of the blue,” he said.
“I'd be sitting at a restaurant and then boom, here's like six verses that you got, so they (the songs) didn't really have any inspiration or anything but for some of them,” he said. “I see like a bird flying across the sky and I go and use that as a song lyric and then I'll just build around that, so it kind of varies, honestly.”
Thomas’ girlfriend, Julianna Kopp, said she saw Thomas’ creative process in action in Cleveland, Ohio, a few weeks ago.
“The sky was super clear one night, so we drove out to an observatory to look at stars,” she said. “Adam stayed back a little and seemed very focused on his phone. After we all got too cold, we went back to the car. I asked him if everything was okay and he very simply went ‘I just wrote a song.’”
Thomas said his songwriting process for his newest album is different from his first album, “Names and Faces.” He said with his first album, people would text him and ask, “Hey Adam, could you write a song about this? I don't know if I've ever had a song about that.”
He said he would respond with “Yeah, I could do that,” and then he would write a song for the person and would also name it after them.
“That’s why all my songs on that album have names of people, and I thought that was a cool idea because then they’re share it with their friends and their friends’ friends, which is a cool marketing thing,” he said.
Thomas said his favorite song he’s written is an unreleased song about his girlfriend, called “Juliana.” He said he hopes to release the song within the next few months.
“It's a beautiful song, it just came to me one day lyrically, like woosh, and I’m like, whoa, where'd that come from?” he said.
When it comes to performing, Thomas says he’s a natural. His largest performance by far was at Abbey Road on the River, where he said he played for a private audience of about 5,000 attendees.
Thomas said he would love to perform at the Louisville Palace. He said, “It’s beautiful there, I love it.”
He said he once had a dream of playing in a colosseum in Pompeii and said he would also love to play at Hyde Park in Chicago.
Like his idol Harry Styles, Thomas said he would love to perform at Coachella.
“It’s (Coachella) just so fun, I've been once, and it was so fun,” he said. “Even if I’m outside of the gates playing, I wouldn’t care.”
Thomas said he dreams of collaborating with Paul McCartney, who is his and his girlfriend’s favorite artist, and Harry Styles. “Our song is actually by Paul McCartney, so he kind of has that sweet spot in our hearts and we’re going to go see him this summer, hopefully,” he said.
Kopp said if Thomas ever collaborated with McCartney, she would “freak out.” She said she knows Thomas would be stoked for the opportunity.
“Paul McCartney has remained extremely humble throughout his career in music,” she said. “I know Adam admires him a lot and we have talked about how he hopes to remain modest through his career in music, as well.”
“I think he's (Harry Styles) just very fun to work with and I can't think of anyone ever saying a bad thing about him, so I feel like me and him would get along pretty well,” Thomas said.
Thomas plays with a backup band, Adam Thomas and the Haze, and said he wants them to be well-known like Styles’ band, the Love Band.
He said he used to play in a band called Written in Red, and the band made a name for themselves playing at local bars. But Thomas said he knew it was time for him to branch off because he felt like his voice was being destroyed after singing intense songs like “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys.
“I wanted to do something that kind of showcases myself and having already made a name for myself in that sense, I felt comfortable putting my name before the backup band,” he said. “If you see whenever I release stuff, it says ‘Adam Thomas.’ It doesn't say ‘Adam Thomas and anything else’ because in the studio, I'm the one playing all the instruments.”
Thomas said he believes the key to an artist’s success is staying humble and believing “you are the best at what you do.”
He said, “Whenever I go into the studio, I’m like, ‘I'm better than Harry Styles, I'm better than Paul McCartney,’ but also whenever I play live, I'm like, okay, I'm better than them but I'm also not, so you gotta keep that healthy balance.”
Kopp said she’s proud of Thomas for the work he’s put into his music. She said her respect for him has grown significantly after seeing him in the process of creating his next album
She said, “He works extremely hard and he has some amazing ideas. His next album is going to be a vibe for the summer, and I am so excited for it to be released.”
Steven Anto said he’s known Thomas for three years. Anto said he recorded and mixed “Names and Faces,” where Thomas was the main producer.
He said he’s entered into a more prominent producer role for Thomas’ upcoming album by bringing in musicians he knows to play on a few tracks to bring the songs to life.
Anto said he and Thomas work three to 10 hours at a time depending on what they’re recording. “Dedicating that much time shows me that he’s really committed to his music,” he said.
“It’s inspiring to work with artists who know exactly what they want, but it’s also fun to present other options available sonically that could benefit the song and spiral into other ideas to add different elements into the song,” Anto said.
Thomas will be playing a gig at the Bomhard Theater at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts on Aug. 12 and 13. More information and tickets will be available soon on the Center’s website.
Thomas and his band are also playing in the basement at Vernon Lanes Bowling on June 3. He said the performance will be a “fun little interactive session where we might do a little bit of blues and get people moving around.”
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