Welcome to Music and Fishing: A New Original Series where we examine the confluence of art and the outdoors, in hopes of answering the question: “How does it all come together?”. In this installment, we partnered with Fairwell Festival, and were able to pull our friend, Ian Munsick, off the road for an afternoon, and get out on some iconic Colorado water with the mission of finding some trout. During our time together, not only did we find fish, but also had a chance to discuss how a boy from a ranch in Wyoming, managed to find his way to the top of the country music charts…
Flylords: Who is Ian Munsick?
Ian: First and foremost I am a father to my son and a husband to my wife. Beyond that, I’m just a guy who loves to promote the spirit of the West through my music – that’s always been my goal, my creed. Growing up on a ranch in Wyoming, I grew up in an extremely unique way that has molded who I am and allowed me to discover music and use it as an incredible outlet. As a Rocky Mountain boy and an advocate of the Western way of life, it’s been a real blessing to spread my message through doing what I love in making music, and I hope it’s being done in a way that honors my roots and the West in general.
Flylords: What was your childhood like? Did you spend much time in the outdoors/fishing?
Ian: Growing up on a ranch meant my two older brothers and I were raised right. The ranch our parents managed was in Bighorn, Wyoming, right in the canyon on the eastern slope of the Bighorn mountains. Our parents would just turn my two brothers and me loose. It was like, “Hey, that’s your land. Just be home before it gets dark.”
With our parents being ranchers, they instilled those values of respecting the land in my brothers and I. We learned everything from them, and they taught us what it meant to be self-reliant – living out there required knowing how to garden, how to be a mechanic; pretty much just being handy at everything and being in touch with the land. It really was an incredible way to grow up. So as a result, yeah, spending time outdoors was a core piece of my childhood.
Flylords: When did music make its way into your life and how?
Ian: Music was a big part of my childhood because my dad is an awesome fiddle player, piano player, guitar picker and artist in his own right. All the music he was making was about being a rancher and living life as a cowboy, so that Western imagery has been woven into my musical DNA.
He raised my brothers and me to play music, so that’s how we learned – we never really had a choice. My brothers were taking piano and guitar by the time I was two years old. Because my brothers are a few years older than me they became my heroes and I just wanted to do everything they did. So being the youngest, I wanted to play music because my brothers were playing music. I wanted to ride horses because my brothers were riding horses. I wanted to do anything they were doing, and it was the same thing with my dad.
Flylords: How did your music evolve to reflect your environment over time, especially in Wyoming?
Ian: Wyoming is a very special place. Because it’s the least populated state there just isn’t a lot of bullshit and everyone knows everyone. The people that live there are honest, trustworthy, and hardworking and they live there because they value their privacy and solitude. That type of lifestyle comes with living with the land, and being connected to the land in more ways than any other place I know. People there also share those values of independence and self-reliance that I was raised with, and even though I live in Nashville now I still carry that sense of Wyoming and the cowboy lifestyle with me, and try to reflect that in my music.
Flylords: When was the first time you picked up a fly rod?
Ian: My dad would always take my brothers and I fishing on lakes or we’d take vacations to the ocean, but it wasn’t until I was probably 12 years old that I picked up a fly rod. Fly fishing was always viewed as a rite of passage by my dad – he wanted us to be old enough to respect the art form and the skill it required.
We had a beautiful little river called the Tunnel River that flowed through the back of our property, and that’s where I grew up learning how to cast and read water. When I was 15 or so I took my first real fly fishing trip and we went to the Bighorn River. My dad’s buddy, this guy who’s nearly in his 80s, guided us, and I remember actually catching fish and thinking how amazing that experience was. For me fly fishing, and those types of memories and experiences, have just stuck with me longer than spin fishing.
Flylords: What was a pivotal point for you as a musician?
Ian: There have definitely been a few moments like that, but the first one where I felt like, “I can do this on my own,” was probably in 2017. Before moving to Nashville, I wrote and recorded a track called “Horses Are Faster” in my dad’s basement in Wyoming. I uploaded it to YouTube since independent music release options were limited back then. A year or two later, after moving to Nashville, I noticed the song was gaining significant recognition in the Rocky Mountain region. When I saw it had reached a billion plays on YouTube, I realized people liked my music, which made me think, “Maybe I have something people want to hear from me as an artist.”
After that, I met my wife, Caroline, who was my manager at the time. We went to college together but didn’t really know each other. She heard my song, “Horses Are Faster,” and got me my first gig as a touring bass player. Seeing the traction the song was getting, she reached out to me. She wanted to start her own management company, and I wanted to pursue my own artistry, so we teamed up. We rebranded, released an EP under my name, and introduced me to the country music world as Ian Munsick. So that was kind of the first legit step.
Every artist expects to “blow up” early, but my rise has been extremely healthy. My first EP received a great response, giving me a solid grassroots foundation in the Rocky Mountain and Red Dirt Music scenes. Two years later, we released “Coyote Cry,” my first introduction to the Nashville music world. It received a great response from the industry and creative community, which fueled my next album, “White Buffalo,” released last year.
Flylords: How did your time outside and in the water influence your songwriting?
Ian: Growing up in the Rockies, the most magical thing isn’t the people, but the land. People come to the Rocky Mountains to experience the outdoors but the time spent actually being connected with the earth and with nature is just getting slimmer every day. It’s so important to spend time connecting with the land that you’re on and there’s probably no better way than to fish.
That’s the main thing about fishing – my job is to talk all day, make noise, entertain, and promote myself. But man, out there, it’s the opposite. You get to just be with you and your inner mind. You don’t have to speak to anybody and you just feel the peace of it all. Being quietly connected to nature is probably my favorite part of fly fishing.
When it comes to making music, you have to go experience life to get creative fuel. I can’t just be in a room writing all day, and time on the water helps replenish that creative bank which I draw my inspiration from.
Flylords: How would you say music (specifically making and playing it) and fly fishing are most similar?
Ian: The first thing that pops into my mind is technique. Yes, there is a “right” way of doing it, and yeah you can be taught a lot but there’s a whole other half of music and fishing that can’t be taught – it’s intuitive, it’s feel, it’s creativity, and I think that’s what’s so cool about both music and fishing.
I kind of compare writing a hit to catching a fish. You can do all of the steps, do the whole process in exactly the “right” way, but you might not catch fish, and that’s how it is with music. At the end of the day, you never know which song is going to be the hit, and you never know which cast is going to be the one that lands you that hog.
Flylords: What’s next for Ian Munsick?
Ian: I’m going to start putting out a lot of new music in the next few months, which I’m really, really pumped about. The next chapter of my recorded music is coming quickly, so I’m excited to be dropping a bunch of new stuff. I’m also going on tour with Lainey Wilson this year and doing a ton of headlining shows through the Rockies this fall. So a lot of live music and a lot of new music – stay tuned.
Thank you to Ian Munsick for taking the time out of his busy schedule to come meet up with us and rope some fish! To learn more about where Ian will be playing next, check out his IG for tour dates. If you want to come see Ian, and an array of amazing artists over the course of 3 days this July, check out Fairwell Festival. Fairwell Festival is an Oregon-based music festival focused on bringing people who love the outdoors and their favorite music together. Click HERE to find tickets and dates!
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