Bluegrass band, Merle Monroe, released their new album, “Back to the Country” on June 21 of this year, which has since been well liked among the public. Their banjo player is Daniel Grindstaff.

According to Grindstaff, his love for the banjo began at the age of 13.

“Once I started, that’s all I did,” he said. “I really had the time. That’s one thing, however talented you are, you have to have time to devote to it. When you’re a kid, there’s no better time to learn because you have more time on your hands.”

Grindstaff found his interests steering towards older music like that of the Osborne Brothers after discovering an old box of his father’s records.

“As a kid, I really loved it,” he said. “I really studied it, not only what they were playing but also the mechanics of the whole setting as far as how the band sounds, why this guy did this or that.”

By his teens, Grindstaff began attending local music gatherings and soon met some individuals who played professionally. This allowed him to get his foot in the door at the Grand Ole Opry. Soon, he played with the likes of Jim and Jesse, and eventually the Osborne Brothers, the people he looked up to as a child. This ultimately led him to meeting Marty Raybon, who he would later tour with for five years and whose brother is now in Merle Monroe with Grindstaff.

“Everything has a tie in for what I’ve done,” he said.

According to Grindstaff, since he was a child, his goal had been to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.

“When I was 12 years old, I wanted to play the Opry,” he said. “The first show I played was at the old Opry house. I love going down there. From time to time I still fill in. That was a huge goal for me. A lot of the people I looked up to as a kid, I was right there with them.”

Though he has not counted the number of times he has performed at the Opry, he estimates between 400 and 450 times to date.

Grindstaff ended up touring from the time he was 18 until 29, often working 50 out of the 52 weeks in a year. He made the decision to slow down in 2011. Grindstaff met his wife shortly before he made this decision.

Upon slowing down, Grindstaff took on a job as an agent at Farm Bureau Insurance, and now has two sons with his wife.

Grindstaff formed Merle Monroe with Marty Raybon’s brother, Tim. The band also consists of Eli Johnston, Derek Deakins and Josh Doss. According to Grindstaff, each individual in the band has a history with music, but all had a mutual interest in slowing down from full-time music.

“Everybody that’s in our band at one point in time, for the most part, did music full time,” he said. “We’ve all got families now, and we have different things we do, but we still do music. It’s morphed into something that works pretty well for all of us. The catch was finding a record label that wanted to put an album out with a band that didn’t want to tour.”

Grindstaff attributes modern technology to the creation of their album, as the bandmates do not live exactly close to one another.

“Modern technology really helped with the recording process,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of covers on the album; most of the songs, Tim wrote. Tim will record his demo songs on his iPhone, and then send them to us. When we go into the studio, we already know what we are going to record. Most of us have enough studio experience to record pretty quickly and at our leisure. Modern technology is the absolute reason we were able to do what we did.”

Upon the release of their album, the band is performing select shows, something their record label doesn’t mind. Songs have also already been topping the charts as well.

“We debuted at number one on Roots Music,” he said. “We had a Christmas song in the top 20, and XM Radio is playing us pretty regularly.”

One of Grindstaff’s favorite songs on the album is called “Dad,” which is considered by his oldest son to be their song. For Grindstaff, his children is one of the reasons he keeps the music going is because it is something they enjoy, and he believes his oldest could follow in his footsteps with loving music.

For all the newer artists out there, Grindstaff has words of wisdom.

“Play because you love to play,” he said. “I just love music, and I still love music. My best advice is play because you love it and have goals.”

For more information on Merle Monroe, go to their website at www.merlemonroe.com. To purchase their latest album, you can go to the Chamber of Commerce, or purchase it through their website.