David Nail knows what to do when he’s thrown a curve.
He takes it, hoping to eventually reach first base on a walk.
Life has thrown the country singer a few curves along the way, and Nail has taken a lot of pitches. But now he’s finally ready to step up to the plate in the big leagues, looking for a hit or two. His debut album, I’m About To Come Alive (MCA Nashville), is set to be released August 18, about 10 years after his arrival in the Music City.
Music wasn’t always on Nail’s mind when he first arrived in Nashville, though. His ambition (at least he thought at the time) was to play baseball, a lifelong Cardinals fan who grew up in a small town in southeast Missouri.
After graduating from Kennett High School in 1997, Nail enrolled at Aquinas College, where he planned to continue his career as a fast-running catcher who had the ability to draw walks and steal bases.
“I was never much of a power hitter until I got to college,” Nail said during a phone interview earlier this month. “Like the first week, we couldn’t work out with the coaches but we could take BP (batting practice); and I remember calling my dad the first week and going, ‘I really don’t know what's going on, but for some reason, I’m hitting a lot of homers.’ ”
That didn’t last long, though. A pre-existing shoulder injury prematurely ended Nail’s baseball career, but he might have eventually given it up anyway. He soon discovered what Nashville had to offer a former choirboy who had been singing since the age of five and whose father was a high school band director.
“I had come to Nashville and lived for a couple weeks and was fairly enthralled and just dumbfounded by how huge at the time Nashville was and would walk the streets at night and see other people singing,” Nail said. “And I fell in love with it. And at that point, I really had no interest in playing (baseball). I’ve always been very much a one-track-minded guy. ...”
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