Music has always been a part of Bobby Strickland’s life. To hear him tell it, he could sing before he could talk. It would then be safe to say that music captured Bobby’s heart at an early age, and never let go.
“Much of what I do is what I learned from growing up in a musical household,” Bobby says. “Everyone either played an instrument or sang in our house.”
It would take years, however, (he’s done everything from fast food jobs to a delivery driver for Harley Davidson) for Bobby to turn his passion into a full-time career.
“For a while, music was a side gig. I didn’t focus on doing anything of my own except playing with friends.”
It wasn’t until he quit his day job at the airlines and moved to Washington, MO for a year with his wife, that he got down to what he really wanted to do with his life.
When he moved back to St. Charles in 2018, he started volunteering under the then-band director at his grade school alma mater, the Academy of the Sacred Heart. When the position became available full-time, Bobby took over the program. For the last two years, he has balanced working for the Catholic school, while playing with local band Campus Drive.
The last two years, Bobby says, has been about making up for lost time by playing and singing as much as possible.
Since the coronavirus essentially shut down the state, and Campus Drive has been on hiatus, Bobby has been working at growing as a writer (“It’s interesting to get what’s going on in my head onto paper”), but he admits this part of the music process is more difficult than he imagined it would be. “Many times, for me, the music comes first as far as the ideas go. I start with the jam tracks and the lyrics come to me within that process.”
By fall, Bobby says he will be releasing five-tracks for public consumption, something he’s never done before. “It’s very much a ‘hey world, this is me and what I’m doing with music,’” he says.
“Music is what’s kept me going. I’m blessed to be able to get to a level where I can know myself as an artist.”
For more information, visit BobbyStricklandMusic.com.
