Welcome - from Jake

Albany to Nashville

Good morning Storytellers!

Wow, this feels great. I have been meaning to hop in here & introduce myself since last week, but time got away from me, and I wanted to do you guys justice with my first post so I appreciate the patience. Between a Dawgs win and CMA Awards this week in Nashville, I am so thankful to slow down a bit to tell my story and our goals with The Storytellers Club! As I send this out over my cup of coffee on a Monday morning or, I hope this provides a little glimmer of joy as we embark on this next chapter together.

Conner has shared the story of how we met a few times, but for those who don’t know, I’m Jake Kinney—Conner’s manager and longtime buddy. I come from a small, South Georgia town called Albany. Albany is one of the best towns and I credit the culture of Albany in shaping who I am today. If you ever find yourself in South Georgia, please reach out & and I will hook you up!

Let’s start with why we are here:

Like Conner has said in previous posts, we have DREAMED of a platform in which we could really interact in consistent dialogue with you guys. We wanted it to be something better than a spam email, Instagram post, or a hideous green bubble text message (sorry Samsung users). At the end of the day, we just wanted culture.

But how do we build that? There was no “industry standard” as to how to connect & truly serve you guys the way that we want to. We want to chat. We want to hear what you have to say. We want to give you guys cool things. We want you guys to know everything first. And so here we are on Substack - a platform we are all learning and what will be the home of Storytellers unless we find a better way to hang out together.

Me and Conner’s Story:

I think it is easiest to explain by recapping a little bit of me and Conner’s story first.

Conner and I first met at a coffee shop called Frothy Monkey in a neighborhood called 12 South in Nashville. I was on a family vacation visiting my sister (who also works in the music industry) and I Ubered to the meeting with Conner. Yes, I was blowing him up in the DMs for a year prior…

We really didn’t chat about much music stuff. We chatted about life, his story, baseball, and a little bit about faith. What I noticed is that Conner was a listener before a talker. But once he started talking, it was very intentional. He truly wanted to know my story. As a 15 year old critiquing a 17 year olds communication skills, I was pretty impressed! Conner then told me about this sermon series by this guy named Mike Todd called “Crazy Faith" and that I needed to watch it. I don’t even think that he knows this to this day, but that sermon series truly changed my life. If you want to dive in, I linked it above.

From that coffee, me and Conner stayed in touch as he navigated the next seasons of his music journey. We then ended up TikTok & GroupMe wizards, got some music out, and him on a Thomas Rhett tour. If you missed that story check it out here. Man that was such a fun time.

We then went on our separate ways professionally but definitely remained very close friends. I went and managed a few other artists, worked for a promoter (people that put on concerts and festivals), went to school, and learned a lot. Towards the beginning of 2023, I started as Conner’s tour manager, and then about 8 months ago, I started managing Conner.

I started Pioneer Artists, a new management company of mine (named after the Cory Asbury song called “Pioneer”) to start managing Conner. In August, I officially partnered with Kappy who owns Make Wake Artists to co-manage Conner. Kappy is genuinely one of the best guys that I know. I can not imagine a better partner and someone to lean on. You guys will meet him soon!

Why this matters:

The music industry is a wild place. Like Conner said last week, “The music industry does everything it can to distract you…” and it is true! When we get down to what truly matters, it is you guys. Seriously. We all have our own lives and stories, but you spending some of your free time means the world to us. We know that community is what prevails.

So, between Conner, Kappy, Ashton, Cranman, Cooper, the rest of the band, and myself, we are going to do our best to serve you guys. It may mean I pop in here to say hey and give some updates on new things coming. It may mean Ashton getting in here and organizing a pre-show pickleball tournament. It may mean Cran making sure you get a setlist after the show… he’s still single ladies. It may just be all of y’all being one massive support group that steps in and has each others back when they need it.

This is just the start. Let’s have some fun. Let’s chop it up. Shout if you need me. I am one Substack DM away!

Jake