With his debut album This Far South, singer-songwriter Tommy Prine shares a personal journey of loss, anger and redemption.
Tommy Prine’s songwriting is a complicated beast—it has glimpses of rock and country, it’s somber and even playful at times. And the wistfulness of his voice comes from a man who’s become painfully aware, perhaps sooner than he would have liked, that life often goes for the jugular. In 2023, Prine—the son of legendary singer/songwriter John Prine—released his debut record, This Far South, a personal journey of loss, anger and redemption through grief. Since then, Prine has toured extensively, opening shows for country heavyweights ranging from Margo Price to Tyler Childers.
HUSTLERMagazine.com recently caught up with Prine from his home in Nashville, Tennessee, where we discussed his career, personal growth and what it takes to come out on the other side when life starts bucking like an angry bronco.
HUSTLERMagazine.com: Let’s talk about your debut record, This Far South. A lot of country music artists present themselves as being God-fearing, but your album kicks off with a song called “Elohim,” which contains the lyrics, “I don’t believe in God or Elohim.” Is that a declaration of atheism?
No, not really. Honestly, I’m still a person that has his own spiritual journey. I’ll say, on the record, I do believe in God, but I just don’t think that I would be a Christian, the guy going to a church every Sunday. … I think I do have my own spiritual journey, and I do think there is a higher power. The whole reason that I put that song on the record is because it’s a narrative. It’s the beginning of the narrative of me [starting as] a scared, afraid, angry, lost young man that had some issues, that had lost his dad, that lost his best friend. And a little aimless. … I think, since then, I’ve grown a lot, but I wouldn’t say I’m a super-Christian guy that goes to church every Sunday. But I’ve seen enough to know that there is something else going on, humans aren’t just the end-all, be-all of it.
Part of your record deals with loss, which we all process in unique ways, and we also develop unique perspectives when trying to make sense of it. What has loss taught you?
Loss, honestly, has been the most profound experience that I have yet to go through. It has taught me that, through great grief and through extraordinarily trying times, that’s actually where you can find the opportunity to be grateful for everything that you have, even being grateful for the loss that you have endured.
