CODY SIMPSON Welcome To Paradise: My Journey 100% official

MUSICAL BEGINNINGS

Just as surf and swimming culture was a passion of mine from the very beginning, music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Whenever we could get together with family and friends, it seems like we always ended up around a bonfire or a dinner table playing and singing along to our favorite songs. We hosted these barbecues and parties with close family friends, and they would bring their guitars and we'd all gather round and sing songs. Everyone would join in and I remember sitting next to my parents, in this big circle, and loving the sound of all our voices mixing together.

We mostly played country music, classics by Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, and sometimes a little Elvis was thrown into the mix. When I was six, I really fell in love with country music. I loved the sound of tinny guitars and how the songs were more like stories. There was really a journey unfolding in each one, full of emotion and layers. It set a high bar fore when I began to write my own songs..

My first concert memory is from when I was nine or ten years old and we went to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre to see Keith Urban. The whole family went, along with all four of my grandparents, and I brought a friend of mine, too. We had great seats, close to the stage, and o was jumping and screaming and singing along. I realized then the power of connecting to audience through music. Playing together had always connected my family and close friends, but now I saw Keith Urban connect to thousands and thousands of fans st once. It was powerful.

Country music was pretty much all we listened to around the house and played as a family when I was young. My grandparents had passed their love of country music on to my dad, and at home he always had his guitar in hand and was always strumming away at some chords or braking into a song. No wonder I'm always walking around and singing!

Of course, I wanted to learn how to play guitar so I could join him. I asked for a guitar for my sixth birthday and my grandparents gave me a

quarter-sized one. I was thrilled! I signed up for lessons immediately. "Jackson" by Johnny Cash was one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar. It only had three chords, and those were the only chords I knew. But I played that song all the time. I couldn't wait to join in on those impromptu jam sessions around the barbecue. And - just like my dad - the guitar rarely left my hands.