Tucker Wetmore on the Football Injury That Changed Everything: 'I Got My Sign… on the 45-Yard Line' (Exclusive)

Tucker Wetmore could be country music’s next big star from a small town.

“I graduated with 69 people in my class, and I was the largest class that ever went through my school,” says Wetmore, 24, during an interview with PEOPLE about growing up in Kalama, Washington. “I want to say that now there are 2,400 people living in the city.”

It was the town where Wetmore grew up loving the Oregon Ducks football team and the state where he listened to his grandfather preach at the Tabernacle Church of God down the road. “I remember sleeping with my relatives on the altar,” he recalls with a laugh.

Wetmore played baseball and ran track, but drove away from the city he loved in 2018 when he got a chance to play football at Montana Tech in Butte, Montana. “My plan was just to go to college and play as much as I could, and then hopefully get drafted at some point,” he remembers. “But my grades were terrible. I was bad in school.”

For a while, Wetmore played, and when he wasn’t playing, he was partying. And sometime toward the end of his freshman year, Wetmore says he started to feel a little lost.

“I would be sleeping on my friend’s couch after practice and I remember one night I put my things down and went to the bathroom and I just started bawling,” he remembers. “I mean, I was just crying hysterically. I knew in my heart that I was not on the right path. I just needed a sign whether to stay or go.”

Tucker Wetmore.

Anna Schaeffer

Wetmore soon got that sign when he broke his leg.

“It was my first game of that spring training ball,” Wetmore recalls. “We went over the post over the middle and I ended up blowing my whole right leg. I remember my first thought was, ‘This really fucking hurts.’ And then my second thought was, ‘That’s my sign.’ I got my mark on the ground in the middle of the field at the 45-yard line.”

And while music wasn’t an immediate backup plan for Wetmore, it had to be considered. “I grew up in a Samoan family, so if someone starts singing ‘Amazing Grace,’ the next thing you know, the whole family choir is in the living room singing ‘Amazing Grace,'” recalls Wetmore, who also started playing the piano. at the age of 11.

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Music ended up being the ultimate backup plan, as the groundbreaking country artist is currently enjoying tons of success just by making music with a healthy dose of determination and honesty.

“I did a lot of soul-searching and just getting along with God for a few years after my college experience,” says Wetmore, who moved to Nashville in 2020. “And this is the path I felt I should be on.”

Admittedly, it’s a path that’s somewhat shocking to the psyche, as viral success often comes quickly and without warning. “I can’t believe it,” admits Wetmore, whose hugely successful debut single “Wine into Whiskey” charted Billboard’s Top 100 and Hot Country Songs charts earlier this year. “It’s everything I’ve worked hard for, but to see it all come to life is just surreal. It’s irresistible in all the good ways.”

Everything seems to be coming alive now thanks to Wetmore’s current hit “Wind Up Missin’ You.”

“I wanted something that people could roll down the windows and feel good about listening to,” Wetmore says of the career-changing song he co-wrote with Chris LaCorte and Thomas Archer that debuted in the Top 5 on iTunes across all genres. and the country charts behind none other than Beyoncé. “We sat down for the next hour and a half writing it, and the next thing you know, I put vocals on my next single.”

Tucker Wetmore.

Courtesy of Back Blocks Music

And yes, he damn well knows how to sound like Morgan Wallen.

“He’s one of the greats, but yeah – I can’t change the way I sing,” says Wetmore, who is currently on the road as part of Cameron Marlowe’s Strangers Tour. “I’m not trying to be anyone but myself.”

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Source: HIS Education