Oliver Anthony is leaving the music industry after rising to fame with “Rich Men North of Richmond” a year ago.
“I’ve decided that moving forward, I don’t need a Nashville management company. I don’t even need to exist within the space of music. So I’m looking at switching my whole business over to a traveling ministry,” he said. “I just kind of want to keep things in the family business moving forward.”
Anthony shared about his upcoming vision called the “Rural Revival Project,” which would start as a “grassroots music festival but, hopefully, it grows into something that can literally change our landscape, and our culture, and the way we live,” he said.
“I want to create a routing schedule that exists parallel to Nashville that circumvents the monopolies of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, and it goes into towns that haven’t had music in them in a long time,” he said. “And it stimulates their economies, it showcases their culture, it uses local vendors, local musicians.
“You’re not having to drive to Pittsburgh to some concrete amphitheater to see a show. It’s done out on a farm or a main street somewhere in a town that desperately needs the economic impact.”
Earlier in the video, Anthony revealed his success in music has allowed him to “never have to work for another day” in his life.
“I have everything that I wanted,” he said.
However, he still wants to contribute to something to the world that can make a difference, he said.
“[There is] this voice from God that just keeps putting this vision in my head of a way to make a real impact in this world, to make a real change, to help light a fire that no one really can extinguish in my lifetime or after,” he said.
“I just want to help bridge the gap between what I perceive to be millions of people who all believe in the same greater vision of us just getting back to living a normal life.”
In his latest video, the country folk star reflected on his year in the music industry and what he discovered about the business during that time.
“Having spent a year in this music industry has just opened my eyes to how much control and how much visibility there is on the top down,” he said. “Like, the analytics that I can pull on just my fan base is terrifying. It’s information that I feel the FBI shouldn’t even have, much less me.”
Anthony also expressed his ideological views.
“I am a conservative because I believe in the first and second amendment, but I don’t know if I’m a Republican or what ... I am. I am just somebody who thinks the whole way we live is so ass-backward and so stupid,“ he said. ”It serves no one than people at the top of a hierarchy that we no longer really need to serve.”
The singer-songwriter lives in Farmville, Virginia, with his wife and three children.
