This week’s NY Entertainer of the week is Brent Stover. Brent lives in New York City and is currently working as a sports anchor for CBS Sports. When he is not working at CBS Sports, he is following his other passion as a country musician. You can check out his band, the Brent Stover Band, which consists of Brent Stover, Matt Blanton, Collette Campbell, and Rich Townsend playing at different venues around the city. Whether he is on TV in his Calvin Klein suit, or on stage in a ball cap and his cowboy boots, he is hitting the NYC pavement and following his dreams. 

upfrontNY: Can you tell us about being an anchor for CBS Sports and how you get involved with that?

Brent Stover: I have been doing TV for the last several years and I had the opportunity to move to New York City 6 years ago and I jumped at the chance. I had been working for CBS anyway and traveling all over the country and coming to New York sometimes and they asked me to come live here and be a studio host full time. I figured it was the chance of a life time and I never looked back. I love the city and working for CBS. I don’t know if I’ll ever leave. It is a great spot and doing sports on TV is kind of a dream job.

 

upfrontNY: When you were growing up was this something you thought about doing?

Brent Stover: I have cassette tapes from when I was a little kid recording myself broadcasting games off of the TV and so I kind of always knew that this was what I was going to do. I worked for the student radio station in college and my first job out of college was at a local station in Topeka, Kansas and I worked my way up. I’ve lived in St. Louis, in Pittsburg, Chicago, and now New York City doing local sports, regional sports, and now on a national level.  The path has always kind of been laid out for me. I am very blessed in that respect.

 

upfrontNY: Do you have a memory of going to a sporting event when you were growing up?

Brent Stover: Yeah, my dad would take us to Royals games. I grew up in Kansas about an hour and a half from Kansas City. Growing up it was always a treat to go to a Kansas City Royals game 5 or 6 times a summer and we always got to go to one Chiefs game during the NFL season every year. I was a pretty young kid, but locked in and I remember that big feeling of looking forward to it for months. Every moment you just soak it in. There is not much of a feeling like it for a young kid to be in a stadium and watching the super stars play on the field.

 

upfrontNY: Now you get to live out your dream. I would assume each day must be very different. How would you tell someone what your day looks like at CBS Sports?

Brent Stover: It’s challenging to describe a typical day.  The main thing that I do is that I am a studio host during college football and during college basketball I will be in the studio one night and then hop on a plane the next day and go announce a game in a college town somewhere and then I’ll come back and be in the studio a couple nights later.

There really is no typical day. Most of the time I don’t go in until mid afternoon or in the evening if it is a weeknight. It is all built on the schedule and built around the games and what time those games are on CBS Sports Network. There is no typical day and I think that is what I like the most about it.

 

upfrontNY: You have this great job as a sports anchor, how did you get involved with country music? I love how you are in the city and you are balancing and following two completely different dreams.

Brent Stover: Yeah, it is crazy! About 2 and a half years ago I was kind of looking for a hobby. I had a fair amount of downtime, especially in the summer and I was thinking I was either going to learn how to surf because I heard there was good surfing in certain spots not far from the city or I was going to go buy a guitar. I am a little late in life to pick up either one of them. One of the guys I work with at CBS, Rick Neuheiselthe former college couch at UCLA plays guitar and he kind of got me into it. Sure enough I went over and picked up a guitar and I went on YouTube and started watching some videos on how to play a few chords and within a couple weeks I was playing a couple of cover songs. I started doing that and soon after I started writing some music and started showing it to people and I got involved with a group of people and I kept writing. The thoughts and experiences kind of started flowing through me. The next thing you know I had a pile of songs, I could play the guitar well enough, started taking some singing lessons, and was hopping around the city a bit meeting different people. It kind of came together really quickly. I am pretty shocked we are where we are right now and doing what we are doing based on my limited experience up until just a few years ago.

 

upfrontNY: When you started learning to play guitar do you remember the first song you learned ?

Brent Stover: “The Dance” by Garth Brooks. I have always loved that song. It is a beautiful song.

 

upfrontNY: Within a short period of time you went from not playing the guitar, to playing the guitar and writing your own music, and now performing around the city. For you what has been the best and hardest part of pursuing country music in New York City?

Brent Stover: The best part is seeing how my friends and coworkers have been so unbelievably supportive and also being able to put together a band with Matt Blanton, Collette Campbell, and Rich Townsend.

I play with these people and they are so incredibly talented and have been doing this for a long time. The fact that they have been so welcoming and helpful and wanting to immediately get on board and take a chance on being in a band with my name on it and playing music that I wrote predominately I have just been kind of floored with how willing that people around me have been to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know where it is going, but we have been having a heck of a lot of fun and have been getting on some pretty great stages around the city!

Things have kind of come together so far, but I think the hardest part has been to get a following. Trying to get a country following in New York City I think can be challenging.  I do know that there is a market for it because the big names come to the city for it. Somehow we have to figure out a way to tap into the people that go to the big concerts when the big country acts come to this city and we got to find those people and try to get them out to our shows whether it is Rockwood Music Hall, The Bitter End,  Hill Country, The Waylon, the Mason Jar, or any of the places we play.

 

upfrontNY: Speaking of The Walyon, you will be playing there this Saturday, March 2^nd. This is the perfect opportunity for people to start off the night coming there and hearing your band perform before going to Terminal 5 for the Salute to Texas Independence Day concert. What do you want people to know about coming to see you perform,  why should they come and start off their night at the Waylon with you?

Brent Stover: I think, that our music is real and it comes from the heart. What we have written I think it taps into people who like country music and I think people can tell when it is authentic and from the heart. The words are based on real experiences and things that I have been through and things that I am hopeful for. We’ve got a little bit of everything. We’ve got some feel good sad songs, I think my strength has been writing those types of songs. We’ve got some love songs.  Like Jason Aldean once put, “baby making music” we‘ve got those songs.

We got the “Instagirl Next Door” which was written for me by some of my-coworkers, led by CBS producer, Brian Raab. It is a cheeky song about meeting a girl on Instagram and hoping she sends you a direct message back. That has been the one that has gotten a big reaction from people because it is so relatable because we are currently in a time when Instagarm is a really big deal.  I say if people are up for a good night of country music I think our stuff is a really good opener. I think we have a unique sound and a lot of fun up there. We try to bring a lot of joy and light to whatever room we are in and show people how appreciative we are to be there.

 

upfrontNY: Is your original music on any platforms that your fans can hear?

Brent Stover: We are currently recording at Dave Caggiano’s studio on Long Island. We are recording our first seven songs and hoping to have them done by the Summer time. We have taken it slow in terms of getting it out there, but I just want to make sure it is really good before we put it on any of the platforms and that it is professionally recorded.

 

upfrontNY: Do you have a dream venue that you want to play one day?

Brent Stover: We would love to play The Garden. It sounds ridiculous to even say things like that but I also think that if you don’t say it and shoot for the moon that you got no chance. We are going to try and build our way up to that. I think at some point we need to get to Nashville and somehow make an impact there and get in front of the right people.

 

upfrontNY:  It must be pretty unbelievable to take a step back and see that you have been going after both dreams and doing it while in the city.

Brent Stover: It is humbling and I am really blessed to be able to do it, to just be able to as you said to chase both. I have been so fortunate with CBS to be able to be in the spot I am at and on top of that to have some time to be able to chase this other dream and no matter how far it ever goes, just to be able to have that be my social life to go out and be around these tremendous musicians and meet fans and people who come in and listen to the music and send you a message to say how much they appreciated your music.

 

upfrontNY: What does 2019 look like for you?

Brent Stover: I think 2019 is the year that our band really picks up steam. I think we release some music and I think we get on stages that we never dreamed of getting on. I don’t know how it is going to happen, but I just think that some doors are going to open up and some amazing things are going to happen with the music and we are going to try and reach some people.

 

NYC FAVORITES

Favorite NYC music venue: Irving Plaza

Favorite NYC restaurant: Tao Downtown

Favorite NYC spot for a night out with friends: The Gem Saloon in Murray Hill

Favorite NYC memory: We played at The Waylon last August and all my friends were in town for the CBS College Football Seminar and we packed out The Waylon . we were playing “Wagon Wheel” and everyone was up dancing and singing along. It was like a full-blown party. Seeing all my friends having that amount of fun and being able to help create a social outing for the people I work with. It was the perfect confluence for the TV thing and the country music thing.

Favorite thing about NYC: I love the energy and the fact that at any moment something exciting is going on when you walk out your door. I love to walk the city, it is my favorite thing to do.

Follow Brent to see more of his music and where to see him perform!

Instagram:@brentstover_

Twitter:@BrentStoverCBS

Upcoming Shows

Saturday, March 2nd from 5-7 p.m. at The Walyon

Friday, April 26th – 7:30 p.m. at The Cutting Room