Photo credit: Casi Yost
“Thunderstorm Artis hasn’t always been a fan of love,” said PEOPLE in the song’s premiere. “Growing up, the Hawaii native watched as the people around him entered relationships for the wrong reasons, often resulting in a whole bunch of heartbreak. And through the years, Artis had begun to consider the idea of love as just a big waste of time.” “I didn’t feel the need to open myself up emotionally to someone because I was so afraid of being hurt,” Artis told PEOPLE. “And I just didn’t want to date anyone, you know? Unless I thought I was going to get married, I didn’t see the need for it.”
But then, he met his soulmate, and four months later, they were married.”My wife Faith first came into my life right when I had just done my blind audition for The Voice,” he said. “We met randomly at a concert. At the time, I didn’t think that true love really existed. And to my surprise, she came into my life and tore down a lot of these walls.” “Surprise,” which Artis wrote in Nashville with Gabe Simon and Elsa Curran, was inspired by their “crazy, insane” love story.
Artis, the second runner-up on season 18 of The Voice, is known for making music that strengthens the heart and awakens the soul. “Surprise” follows the release of “Stronger,” a powerful track featured prominently in a recent episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.” In the last year, he’s toured with Jack Johnson, Train, and Jewel, and was recently added to the BottleRock 2023 lineup.
LISTEN: “STRONGER”
Born into an exceptionally musical family—his father Ron was a Motown session player, while his mother Victoria toured as a backup singer for the likes of Lena Horne—Artis grew up in Oahu and started playing drums at age nine, later taking up piano, guitar, and harmonica. Although he’d dabbled in songwriting throughout his childhood, he found a whole new sense of artistic purpose after using music to cope with the sudden death of his father. Raised on everything from jazz to country to classic soul singers like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye, he immersed himself in sharpening his songcraft and soon began touring extensively with his older brother, acclaimed singer/songwriter Ron Artis II.
In bringing his latest output to life, Artis worked in Los Angeles with producers John Alagia (NEEDTOBREATHE, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real) and Jesse Siebenberg (Lissie, Blue Sky Riders) and in Nashville with producer Dan Agee (Jessie James Decker, The Cains). Spotlighting the stunning range of his voice more fully than ever before, each song matches his nuanced reflection with a newly expanded sound. “There’s been a lot of change for me over the last few years,” he says, “and this music is an embodiment of who I am now.”
For Artis, the work of writing such revelatory songs has become its own form of sustenance. “From a very young age, music has been like an anchor for me; I really don’t know where it’d be without it,” he says. “At this point, I don’t go anywhere without my guitar—because if I do, I feel like there’s a part of me that’s missing.” But for all the fulfillment he finds in songwriting, Artis always keeps an eye toward the potential impact on his audience. “I believe that artists have a responsibility to explain what they’re feeling and put it into their art so that others can understand themselves better,” he says. “So even though I hope my songs give people a better sense of who I am as a person, I also hope the music makes them feel stronger and helps them to grow. I hope it shows them how to love one another, and how to love themselves.”
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