Tre Houston Can Do it All

Tre Houston is a jack of all trades when it comes to the music industry. The talented artist and songwriter has his hands in both hip hop and country music.

Houston’s love for music began 20 years ago after being influenced by a friends brother. From listening to Dr. Dre to writing his own material, Houston has not looked back.

“[Music] was always sort of present, but I definitely got started with hip hop. That started by having a childhood friend whose brother was very into rap music. We’re talking maybe 95, this guy was contently blasting Dr. Dre and all this stuff. I thought it was pretty cool and by the time I hit 6th grade I decided this is what I was going to do. I started writing music then and I really haven’t looked back in almost two decades,” said Houston.

On July 13th Houston will release his new EP Mine. Mine will feature five songs. According to Houston the EP has been a long time coming. Fans will be treated to a unique sound, that Houston is excited to share.

“I’m really excited about this one. It’s been a long time in the making. Producer Tyler Norris who is also working with J. White right now who works with Cardi B, and Tyler has been a good friend of mine for ages professionally. He has done a lot of the mixing and mastering on a lot of my previous stuff that he was not the producer on and maybe two years ago we decided we were going to get together and put some material together,” said Houston.

“He’s a more electronic and EDM influenced producer and I really wanted to work that into the mix while keeping my style and my sensibility to It as well. We were able to put together this very unique EP that I'm incredibly proud of. I think it’s very cohesive as a full project, but every song has something different. I'm just excited to be putting it out. It’s the beginning of a long series of releases that I have finally lined up…” continued Houston.

Not only is Houston a hip hop artist, he writes country songs as well. The shift to writing county songs was brought on by Nashville producer Dave Tough. Tough challenged Houston to write three country songs. One of those songs, “Apple Pie Moonshine” was recorded by country artist Jeff Dane.

“It was a transition spurred on by Dave Tough. He’s been a mentor of mine throughout my adult professional life. At a certain point when Florida Georgia Line and some of these more hip hop influenced country artists were coming to the forefront he gave me a call and was like ‘hey I want you to write three country songs.’ I said what I’ve never written a country song and he was like ‘I am going to send you some tracks we’ll do it like we do any of our hip hop or pop songs and write and see what you come up with’ I wrote those and one of those three turned out to be ‘Apple Pie Moonshine’ which was one of the one that Jeff Dane cut… “ said Houston.

"Again it was one of those situations as soon as I did it, I felt it, I understood it. I had already been listening to country music for a while at that point anyways and it just sort of felt like a natural transition and the skill set carried over,” continued Houston.

For Houston there are a couple of songs that come to mind when asked what are his favorite songs he had a hand in writing or recording. “Tapestry” because of its uniqueness and a song called “Cards We’re Dealt” because of the ability he had to express himself fully while writing the song.

“There are a few, I did a hip hop EP that was actually mostly piano and sting based and one of the songs on there called ‘Tapestry’ was unique to me. It almost felt like I didn’t write it. It felt much more like a memory than it felt like a song or a composition… When I go back and listen to that song now I'm almost less listening to the song and more reliving the memories of that song and it’s very surreal,” said Houston.

“I think another one that Jeff has covered but not released yet is a song called ‘Cards We’re Deal.’t It’s about sort of a back end of a relationship and trying to come to terms with that. It was one of the few moments where I felt like I could put the complexity of what I was feeling at the time down in such a way that I was satisfied that I expressed the full thought and the full feeling,” continued Houston.

According to Houston his artistry and songwriting make up equal parts of his career. For Houston songwriting is all about the expressiveness and the creativity that goes into each song. Being able to create music is what it is all about for Houston.

“…I feel like a writer. Words have always been the thing I gravitated towards. Music is my absolute favorite way to use them. The writing and the creation is where I find my biggest joy. I love performing and I think I can put on an amazing show, but my single greatest joy of the whole process is the creation.”