About Me
If you’re at all interested in a guitarist that can mold to different styles, from blues, rock, and country, to Gospel, R&B, and jazz, you’ve come to the right place. My name is John Coogan, and I’m a guitarist here in Nashville, Tennessee, with lifelong experience as a musician. Since I was 6 years old, I grew up playing in orchestras as a violist, and learned early on the discipline and commitment it takes to build real skill on an instrument. Like all things, building this skill was difficult at first, but with the support of my friends playing alongside me as well as my family’s support, I learned to love it.
John eventually switched his focus to guitar when he turned 12, and hasn’t looked back since. At the time he had no idea it would become so ingrained in his psyche and life in the future. He grew up listening to whatever my parents put on in the car, hip hop, pop, rock, and a little bit of country. Dave Matthews was the first artist that deeply inspired him, his music was some of the first he went to work at learning, along with the 12 bar blues shuffle his teacher first gave him. John became addicted. He eventually played with his middle school choir on “All Star” by Smash Mouth, and in high school he joined a band with some of his friends and played at the school pep rally. These milestones were just the beginning.
After high school, John did a post graduate year at a school up in New Hampshire called Kimball Union Academy, since he was still unsure where he wanted to take his studies. John got into the school’s rock band, and really focused on building his chops there. On days where John had the time, he would practice around 5-6 hours. He desperately wanted to continue this musical exploration. So, John came to visit Nashville for a couple days, since all he was hearing was this was “Music City” and he had to see what it was about. John stumbled across Belmont’s campus just wandering around with my family, saw the beautiful campus with all the music students carrying their guitars, he was pretty much sold from there.
Fast forward to today, John has played in some of Belmont’s top commercial ensembles, one of which he’s currently in right now, which is all things Gospel and R&B. He’s played in a feature event for one of the most notable christian country artists out now, For King+Country, performed multiple times at the Fisher Center on Belmont’s campus, and worked on original/cover songs in home and real studios for some up and coming artists at Belmont, as well as a recent collaboration with the well known hip hop artist Stalley. John’s looking forward to collaborating more with the artists he knows now as well as ones he’ll meet in the future. Music, just like love, has been the strongest force that has guided John to the place he’s at today, and he’s always looking to do more.