And I don’t just mean that in the loose, feel-good sense of “we’re all one big family here.” I mean actual families.

Over the course of the weekend, my wife and I talked to so many people who told us about bringing their kids to this festival every year — kids who now have kids of their own. We’ve watched little ones grow up at this fest. One of our good musician friends mentioned watching our son grow up over the last few years, which hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting. Our son is four years old now, but we’ve been bringing him with us since he was born. This festival has been part of his life from the very beginning. That’s not a small thing.

One of the real highlights for me was the Bowie set. After I came off stage, person after person came up to tell me that David Bowie had changed their life — that they came to specifically for that set. That kind of thing never gets old. Bowie had that effect on people in a way that very few artists ever do. He didn’t just make music; he gave people permission to be whoever they needed to be. To hear those stories, right there in the moment after performing his songs, was something I won’t forget.

I also want to say something about the spirit of the musicians at this festival, because it really is something special. There’s a generosity here, a joy in just making music together, that doesn’t have an agenda behind it. Nobody’s trying to outshine anybody. People just show up and play, and that kind of comradery is rarer than it should be. It’s one of the things that keeps me coming back.

There was also the Denny Laine / Joey Molland / Billy J Kramer / The Hollies tribute set, which carried a lot of emotional weight for reasons that go beyond the music.

Years ago, a good friend of mine — a musician I have a lot of love and respect for — toured with Denny Laine and the two of them were very close. When they came through Louisville, he asked me to be part of a show, and Denny even borrowed one of my guitars that night. It’s one of those memories that sits in a special place.

At the festival this year, my wife and I were talking with our friend about that night. My wife had actually recorded video from the show and pulled it up to show him. I watched his face as he watched the video.

I’m not going to say much more than that, because his emotion isn’t mine to narrate. He’s a private person, and that moment belonged to him. But I will say that witnessing it — being present for that — brought the whole weekend into focus for me.

Because that’s what music does, isn’t it? When you make music with someone, you build something that lasts. A bond that holds even through loss. Even through years of distance. Even when you’re sitting in a hotel lobby at a Beatles festival watching a video on a phone. The feeling is still right there, just as strong as it ever was.

That’s the family that music builds. And loss is part of family too.

I’ve been coming to Abbey Road on the River for a long time now. Every year it gives me something. This year it reminded me that the most important things don’t happen on the stage — they happen in the conversations in between, in the faces of people hearing a song that changed their life, in the little ones who have grown up knowing this place as part of their world. Music has this remarkable way of holding everything — the joy, the loss, the years, the people we miss. It doesn’t let go of any of it. And neither do we. I’ll see you all next year.

The post What Music Leaves Behind: My Weekend at Abbey Road on the River appeared first on Nick Peay Music.

Over the last seven years, I’ve made it my mission to bring something completely different to each set at the festival. Not just different songs, but different pieces of myself. This year, that approach led me to one of the most unexpectedly emotional moments I’ve ever had on stage.

Four Days, Four Sides of the Story

Thursday kicked things off with a trip down memory lane – I played hits from all the headlining acts who’ve graced Abbey Road stages over the past few decades. It felt like flipping through a musical photo album, each song carrying the weight of festivals past and the artists who’ve shaped this event into what it is today.

Friday brought the medleys, my favorite kind of musical puzzle. I’d start with a Beatles song and flow it seamlessly into another popular song from that same era. There’s something magical about watching a crowd’s face light up when they realize where you’re taking them – that moment when “Strawberry Fields Forever” slides perfectly into “Space Oddity” and suddenly everyone’s singing along to both.

Saturday was pure Ziggy Stardust energy. Armed with my loop pedal, I layered drums, keys, and guitar to recreate that glam rock atmosphere all by myself. Bowie always understood that performance was as much about transformation as it was about music, and channeling that theatrical energy reminded me why I fell in love with performing in the first place.

But Sunday – Sunday was when things got real.

The Song That Changed Everything

Sunday’s set was supposed to be my most comfortable one: original songs, my own stories, the intimate connection I’ve spent years building with my audience. I’d planned out the stories behind each song, practiced the transitions, felt confident about sharing these personal pieces of my musical journey.

Then I got to “Feels Like Home.”

I started telling the story like I always do – about working at Ear-X-Tacy, the record store that had been like a second home to me for years before I ever worked there. How it shaped my musical taste, introduced me to artists I never would have discovered, and became the kind of place where music wasn’t just product on a shelf but a living, breathing part of the community.

As I talked about the day we closed the doors for the last time, something unexpected happened. My voice caught. The words got stuck somewhere between my heart and my throat, and suddenly I was choking up in front of the audience.

I could see it in their faces – that moment of recognition. These weren’t just polite festival-goers listening to another musician’s story. These were people who had been there. Who had flipped through vinyl in those same racks, discovered their own favorite albums in those same bins, felt that same sense of loss when we had to say goodbye.

The Real Value of a Song

After the set, people kept coming up to me. Not to tell me I played well or that they liked my voice – though a few did that too. They came to share their own Ear-X-Tacy stories. The first album they bought there. The in-store performance that changed their life. The employee who recommended just the right record at just the right time.

It reminded me of something I wrote about a while back – what exactly is the value of a song? The music industry has all kinds of ways to measure it: downloads, streams, dollar signs. But the real value isn’t in the numbers. It’s in the moments like Sunday afternoon, when a group of strangers suddenly became a group of people sharing the same memory, the same sense of loss, the same understanding that some places and some songs become part of who we are.

Coming Full Circle

There’s something fitting about having this realization at a festival dedicated to the Beatles. The first music that made me want to write songs, the first songs that made me pick up a guitar, came from four guys from Liverpool who understood that music’s power lies in its ability to connect us to each other.

Every year at Abbey Road, I feel that same spark that got me started – that reminder of why I began writing songs in the first place. But this year felt different. This year, I remembered that the best performances aren’t the ones where everything goes according to plan. They’re the ones where something real happens, where the wall between performer and audience disappears for just a moment.

The Risk of Being Real

I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that wonders if I should have kept it together up there. Stayed professional, stuck to the script, given the crowd the polished performance they came for. Playing it safe is easier, and it certainly doesn’t leave you feeling emotionally raw in front of a group of people.

But then I think about all those faces in the crowd, all those shared stories afterward, all those connections that happened because I let my guard down for just a minute. That’s when I remember why I started doing different sets each year in the first place.

Music isn’t just entertainment – it’s communication. And real communication requires vulnerability. It requires taking the risk that what you’re sharing might not land the way you hoped, that you might stumble over your words or get choked up at the worst possible moment.

What Abbey Road Teaches Us

As I packed up my gear on Sunday afternoon, I found myself thinking about all the performers I’d watched over the weekend. There’s so much talent at this festival, so many different approaches to connecting with an audience. Some bring high-energy party vibes, others offer quiet introspection. Some stick with tried-and-true crowd pleasers, others take creative risks.

All of those approaches are valid. All of them have their place. But for me, this year reinforced something I’ve been learning slowly over the past few years: the moments that matter most are often the ones we don’t see coming. The songs that connect deepest are usually the ones that cost us something to share.

Thirteen years into performing at Abbey Road on the River, I’m still learning what it means to truly show up on stage. Not just with my guitar and my voice, but with all the messy, imperfect, real parts of who I am. Sometimes that means choking up while telling a story about a record store. Sometimes it means taking creative risks that might not work.

But it always means remembering that at the end of the day, we’re all just people sharing songs, sharing stories, and hoping to connect with each other in a world that can feel pretty disconnected sometimes.

And maybe that’s the real value of a song after all – not what it costs or how many times it gets played, but how it brings us together, even if just for a weekend in Jeffersonville, Indiana, remembering the places and people and moments that shaped us into who we are today.

See you next year, Abbey Road. I’m already wondering what side of myself I’ll discover then.

The post When Vulnerability Meets the Stage: My Four Days at Abbey Road on the River appeared first on Nick Peay Music.

That phrase stuck with me. The great green room. It felt like more than just a cozy place in a story—it felt like a beautiful metaphor for this planet we all live on. The great, green room we’re lucky enough to wake up in every day.

In 2011, I wrote a song inspired by that idea. I called it The Great Green Room, and the lyrics say goodnight to the many beautiful parts of the natural world—trees, rivers, stars, and skies. It was meant to be a gentle reminder of what we’ve been given and what we stand to lose.

This year, for Earth Day 2025, I’m releasing a newly remastered version of that song—only available on Bandcamp (pay-what-you-want) and my website ($1). But this isn’t just a fresh coat of polish. It’s something more immersive.

I had the opportunity to include natural sound recordings from Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado—thanks to the National Parks’ sound library. You’ll hear the evening soundscape from Moraine Park, the dawn soundscape from the Sun Valley Trail, and a looped recording of crickets tucked gently beneath the music. They didn’t inspire any changes to the arrangement itself, but they added something that felt essential. A layer of beauty. A breath of life.

And that’s really what Earth Day is about, isn’t it?

Taking a breath. Looking around. Remembering how beautiful this place really is.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the noise and speed of everything, we forget we’re part of something much bigger—and quieter—than ourselves. This song was my way of pausing for a moment and saying thank you. Saying goodnight—not as a farewell, but as a gentle promise to care, to notice, and to preserve.

I hope you’ll give it a listen. Maybe even take a moment today to step outside and listen for yourself—no music required. The earth has its own soundtrack if we take the time to hear it.

Happy Earth Day, friends. Let’s take care of the great green room together.

The post Saying Goodnight: A Special Earth Day Release of The Great Green Room appeared first on Nick Peay Music.

I wrote it back in 2003 after hearing a story my grandfather once told me about World War II. There was a program during the war where certain soldiers—if they scored high enough on a test—would be fast-tracked into leadership. They’d go through a 90-day crash course and come out as second lieutenants, expected to lead troops into battle. These young men were called “90 Day Wonders,” and more often than not, they weren’t truly ready for what they were being asked to do. A lot of them—and the soldiers under their command—didn’t make it home.

That stuck with me. I knew I wanted to write about it, but it took a while to get the story right. Each verse follows this soldier’s journey, and with every new part of the story, the chorus takes on a different meaning. That was important to me. I needed it to feel honest, not just in the words but in the way the emotions unfolded. It’s probably one of the most emotional songs I’ve ever written.

Fast forward to 2018. My wife and I were in Nashville visiting friends, and we had a little bit of free time. We’d never done the Ryman tour before, so we figured, why not?

I don’t know how to explain it, but the moment I stepped inside, I felt something in the air. It was like the walls were humming with all the music that had ever been played there. The history, the energy—it was almost overwhelming, but in the best way.

Near the end of the tour, we saw a small engineer’s booth tucked away at the back. Turns out, they let you record a song there if you want to. So I did. Just me and the engineer, no frills, just a guitar and a microphone. I played 90 Day Wonder.

When I finished, the engineer looked at me and said something I’ll never forget: “You really captured what that time must’ve felt like.” That kind of stopped me in my tracks. It was humbling. I didn’t go in expecting much—just thought it’d be a cool thing to say I did—but that moment stuck with me. It still does. It felt like I’d left a little piece of myself in that room, in a place where music has meant so much to so many.

There’s an older studio demo of the song floating around, and I do plan to re-record it at some point. The demo captures the tone, but when I sing it live, it carries more weight. More vulnerability. That seems to be when it really hits.

Anyway, I wanted to share that live version with you. It’s not polished, but that’s part of why I love it. It’s real. And it’s meaningful to me.

I’d love for you to hear it and experience the story for yourself.

90 Day Wonder (Live at The Ryman)

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This live version of 90 Day Wonder was recorded at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN.

90 Day Wonder (Live at The Ryman) quantity

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The post From Family Story to Sacred Stage: The Journey of “90 Day Wonder” appeared first on Nick Peay Music.

I’ve performed as a solo ukulele player, with a huge band, with a 4 piece band, and a solo guitar player. And I always try to come up with a unique set every year.

This year was no different, of course. I’ve spent months thinking about sets, themes, mashups, angles, and more. I’ve thought about audience appeal, I’ve thought outside of the box, I’ve thought inside of the box, and from every corner.

Finally, inspiration struck while I was listening to The Rolling Stones. Yes, I know, that seems wrong. But like I said, I considered a huge range of possibilities when preparing for this year’s Abbey Road on the River festival.

Anyway, it’s not exactly clear where this inspiration came from, or why it hit while I was listening to The Rolling Stones, instead of say, The Beatles (like I should have been listening to). But there it was. And after a little digging and research, the idea grew and inspiration became motivation.

I started learning songs, practicing, experimenting, testing, and building a set.

I’ve played a few songs from my set at some lives shows recently and they’ve gone really well. So I’m even more excited to share this new set with everyone at Abbey Road on the River!

So, what is this new set I’m performing? Well, you’ll just have to come out this weekend and hear it for yourself! I think you’ll like it.

You’ll have 3 chances to catch my set this year.

Friday, May 25th at 7:30pm at The Rachel Blanton Strawberry Field Stage.

Saturday May 26th at 8pm at The Rachel Blanton Strawberry Field Stage.

Sunday May 27th at 1:30pm at The Rachel Blanton Strawberry Field Stage.

Check out arotr.com for more info on the schedule and locations.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there!

The post Abbey Road on The River Sets appeared first on Nick Peay Music.

I practiced my lightsaber moves with empty wrapping paper rolls.

I imagined using the Force to move my Legos.

For Christmas one year, we got the Star Wars trilogy on VHS, and it was one of the greatest gifts ever.

I studied it, memorizing lines and facial expressions, mimicking fight scenes and flight patterns of the Millennium Falcon.

After all these years of watching, re-watching, and watching again, I’m no closer to my Jedi dreams. Sure, I still imagine using the Force to change a stoplight to green.

Star Wars will always be a huge part of my life, as it is for so many other people.

It inspires me, and gives me hope.

To celebrate the day, I’ve released a brand new Star Wars themed song.

It’s called “Lightsaber.” It’s a 1950’s style ballad sung by Darth Vader to his lightsaber lamenting his decision to join the dark side.

Enjoy! And May the Fourth be with you.

Download “Lightsaber” here.

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There are several different thoughts on what the value of a song is. The music industry has set the price to download most songs at $0.99. Some songs may be $1.29 to download. So the price of a download for you is just under a dollar. If you purchase one of my songs from iTunes, they take a cut of your $0.99, then the distributor takes their cut, and I get about $0.60. Which means that the value of my songs is actually less than you perceive it to be.

On-demand and streaming music services present a complication in determining the value of a song. These subscription based services don’t charge on a per song basis. For most, you can sign up and immediately play any song you want, or stream any type of playlist or “radio” station without paying anything. Songs then become a sort of disposable entertainment as one fades into another, and another, and another. This would seem to eliminate any type of personal connection with music.

So then the value of a song through streaming music services goes way down for the consumer. If you can get any song you want, at any time you want, then the song itself becomes mundane. The playlist becomes just ambient background noise.

For me, the value of each song that’s played through a streaming service like Spotify is $0.006 per play.

To put the monetary value of a song into perspective, in order for me to make minimum wage, I would need to average at least 12 downloads each day. On the streaming side, I would need to have approximately 9,667 streams every day.

This is how the music industry and a lot of musicians discuss the value of a song. But there’s another way to discuss the value of music.

Let’s try something. Think of your all-time favorite song. I know, one is hard to chose. If that’s the case, then think of a few of your all-time favorite songs. Think of the first time you heard it, or what it means to you and your life. Think of the friends you’ve shared it with.

Now imaging your life without that song. Erase every memory that that song was a part of. What is the value of that song now?

It seems to me that the true value of a song stems from the associations and connections that we make with it. When someone tells me that a song of mine connected with them, or made a difference in their life, that is worth more than whatever they might have paid for it. Don’t get me wrong, I work hard as a musician and songwriter, I put in a lot of time and effort to write and release music, and it’s great to be compensated for that.

As I’ve said before, music is a part of us, it makes us feel, it sometimes says the thing we didn’t know how to say. It enriches our lives. And you can’t put a monetary value on that.

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I knew July was going to be busy. But I had no idea how much it was going to wear us down. I thought doing all of these fun things and adventures were going to invigorate our zest for life. All it’s done for us recently is invigorate the ability to sleep through alarms.

Last night we ended up with a rare night off. Some plans had gotten rescheduled which left us with nothing really to do. We sat on the couch enjoying the unexpected still moment. We talked about the last few days, the fun we’d had, how blessed we are to have such amazing family and friends. We laughed at the dogs, we told each other all the things we’d meant to tell the other person over the last few days but had forgotten about or hadn’t had time.

I told her about a funny meme I’d seen online that said, “If Billy has 8 guitars and he gets 2 more, what does Billy have?” The punchline is, “Happiness. Billy has happiness.” It made me think of her because sometimes we talk about how many guitars I have, and how occasionally I’ll want another guitar.

We laughed, and it led to a conversation about guitars and the few more that I’d really like to have in my collection. She mentioned the old guitar that her father had given her and that she couldn’t quite remember what make it was. So we went upstairs to take a look.

We opened the case and checked the make on the headstock. I told her that I used to have one just like it that I had gotten rid of years ago. I pulled it out to tune it and she found the cable in the back of the little amp she had and we plugged it in.

I played some old ’70s guitar riffs that I knew and we played a kind of name that tune. We laughed while I fumbled through long forgotten riffs and chord changes. We talked about favorite old songs while I tried to remember how they went.

At some point I started playing some ’90s song that we both knew and we started singing along. It was in the ’90s when I first started playing guitar, so the music of that decade shaped my playing and songwriting.

One song led to another, which led to another. We fumbled over forgotten lyrics, we laughed at our made up lyrical substitutions, and we sang out hearts out.

In our joy and nostalgia, time flew by and before we knew it, it was after 10 o’clock. Concerned that the noise might be heard by the neighbors (we may have had the amp turned up pretty loud), we decided to call it a night.

There’s something about unabashedly singing out loud with all your heart that sparks something deep inside. The connection that we have with music reaches deep inside of us and creates a sense of true joy. Music can be so profound that at times it can bring us to tears. I know that we both felt that at the time.

We never intended to have a sing along last night. But I’m so glad that it happened. It was much needed.

I encourage you, at some point this weekend, to have a sing along. Grab some friends and put some music on, turn the radio up in your car, pull out that old guitar and play the few songs you remember. It would do us all some good to just let go and sing with our hearts.

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The Road to Abbey Road on the River

Planning for Abbey Road starts roughly 10 months prior to the festival. That’s usually when I get the email about the coming festival and I start planning what sorts of sets I’ll be playing. Last year, the promoter wrote to ask each of the bands to prepare an album concert. There have been a few full album shows that I’ve seen over the years, but for the 2016 festival, they wanted to have a bunch. Every Beatles album would be represented in a concert.

We were given the chance to pick two albums that we wanted to present at Abbey Road 2016. While I think all of The Beatles albums are great, there were two that stood out to me as no-brainers to pick.

My first choice was Abbey Road. It has some of my favorite songs on it, it has some really great sequenced sections, and me and the band already knew and played a lot from that album. It made preparation pretty easy!

My second choice, and the one I was most excited about, was Magical Mystery Tour. When I tell Beatles fans that this is one of my favorite albums, most give me a questioning look. Again, this album has some of my very favorite songs on it. But what makes it my favorite is that it was the first full length Beatles album I ever heard. My Dad had recorded it on a cassette tape and I used to listen to it all the time on my cassette player.

I began listening to these albums on repeat, trying to figure out how to best present them. I imagined a huge concert with rock guitars, drums and bass, strings, pianos, sound effects, background singers, choreography… Ok, maybe not choreography, but you get the point.

And then, due to some unfortunate timing, I realized that the band I always brought to Abbey Road wouldn’t be able to make it this year.

I had no idea what to do now. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to present the concerts I wanted to. I emailed the promoter and told him what had happened and that I wasn’t sure what I’d be able bring to the festival this year. How do you get a 14-piece band together and learn and rehearse two sets in only a few months?

The Difference Between Ukulele and Bass

I was having a drink with my friend and fellow singer/songwriter Gabe Close one night in February. We were planning some out of town gigs and talking about the music industry in general. We both had just released new records and wanted to do a little touring in support of them.

We talked about the struggles of being an independent musician and about all the other moving pieces that have to be taken care of aside from just writing and recording records. We talked about songwriting. I was participating in February Album Writing Month, where the goal is to write 14 songs in 28 days.

Somehow we got around to talking about playing covers or cover gigs or something. I knew Gabe did some Bob Dylan tunes, and suddenly there was the spark of an idea.

Maybe Gabe and I could get some friends together and perform George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh at Abbey Road on the River this year.

Gabe said it sounded like a good idea and we both started trying to get in touch with people who might join us. We got a lead guitarist, a drummer and a bass player. Then we didn’t have a bass player. Then we found a replacement. Then we lost our replacement.

I realized I was going to have to trade my small 4-stringed instrument for a large 4-stringed instrument. So, I pulled out my bass and got to practicing. It wasn’t long before I got blisters on my fingers.

Ain’t No Business Like Show Business

Something pretty spectacular happens when you’re on stage playing music with a bunch of musicians and having fun. There are fun little jokes shared on stage without a word being said. Like when the drummer switches to double time in the middle of the guitar solo because the guitar player jokingly told him in practice not to do that, but that he wouldn’t be paying any attention to the drums anyway. Everyone looks around at each other and laughs (except the guitar player, who’s not paying attention – Just kidding Dennis!).

Something even more spectacular happens when you look out into the audience and see that people are dancing and singing along. Suddenly they’re in that moment with you. Even though you can’t hear them, you know that they’re singing their hearts out. They’re pouring every emotion into those words. And then, when the sound system cuts out in the middle of the finale for whatever crazy reason, they’re all singing and each one of them helps to carry the band to the final notes of the song.

For four years, Abbey Road fans have made me feel like a part of the family. It’s always great to see smiling faces and hear how excited people are to come out and support me. Even when there’s a scheduling conflict and my 45 minute set gets cut to 15 minutes, everyone still dances and sings along.

I hear a lot of people say Abbey Road on the River is for Beatles fans. While that’s true, it’s really more for music fans and life fans. There’s no shortage of amazing talent at Abbey Road, and certainly no shortage of enjoyment to be had through dancing, singing, laughing and reconnecting.

I was asked in an interview with Insider Louisville to describe what the atmosphere at Abbey Road is like. I started to say it’s like a music festival. But it isn’t just a music festival. I thought, well it’s like a really fun music festival with lots of close friends and family. And then I thought of days like today, just a few days after the amps and mics have been turned off, after the stage lights have been taken down, and after all of us have gone home. I look at my Facebook news feed and see a constant stream of posts all saying something like, “I miss my Abbey Road on the River family.”

Abbey Road on the River isn’t just a music festival. It is a family reunion. It is peace and happiness. It is singing, dancing, and laughing. It is love. And all you need is love.

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