Trent Tomlinson works as a country singer and songwriter who avoids the gentle balladeer image entirely. His tastes draw equally from the outlaw country era of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and from later country-rock figures such as Big & Rich or the evolved Kid Rock, reflecting the same dedication to a rowdy honky-tonk lifestyle as to Nashville’s melodic traditions. Press images portray him as the Southern-fried counterpart to Steve Van Zandt during the latter’s bandana-and-leathers period. Born in Arkansas in 1976, Tomlinson grew up in the modest Missouri community of Kennett. His father, Don Tomlinson, had suited up for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the early 1970s until a knee injury redirected him toward high-school coaching; although the younger Tomlinson showed some athletic promise, music remained his central focus.
During his early-1990s high-school years he competed on the country edition of Star Search titled You Can Be a Star and finished as first runner-up. After graduation he relocated to Nashville, where nearly ten years of routine Music Row labor followed as he chased publishing contracts and landed scattered album cuts for lesser-known artists. As tastes in the city shifted toward rock-oriented sounds, Tomlinson began performing his own material and secured placements with Emerson Drive, George Strait, and Sara Evans. In 2006 he issued his first single on the Lyric Street imprint, the boisterous domestic quarrel “Drunker Than Me,” which climbed to a Top 20 country position. He next released the paternal tribute “One Wing in the Fire,” a ballad that edged into the lower tiers of the Billboard Hot 100.
His debut album, Country Is My Rock, appeared in spring 2006 and reached number 20 on the Billboard country chart; the follow-up single “Just Might Have Her Radio On” peaked at 21 the next year. In 2008 Lyric Street transferred him to its Carolwood affiliate, where he put out three singles—“That’s How It Still Oughta Be,” “Henry Cartwright’s Produce Stand,” and “Angels Like Her”—none of which charted. Carolwood ceased operations late in 2009, prompting a brief return to Lyric Street that concluded in 2010. Tomlinson signed with Skyline in 2011, yet the label never issued the album he recorded there. He released the track “Come Back to Bed” in 2014, and two years later his long-postponed second album, That’s What’s Working Right Now, finally arrived.
