Check Out Tyler Ford’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tyler Ford.

Hi Tyler, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I (Tyler Ford – Lead singer and guitarist) got serious about music in my junior year of high school after playing guitar for a couple of years before. Think all-nighters trying to learn Stevie Ray Vaughan licks and watching every John Mayer blues show I could get my hands on. That year, I started a band called “Mighty Mango” with some good Charlotte friends and we began playing shows around local bars and venues and writing “college indie rock,” as one of our old producers described it.

Fast forward to college, and alongside one other member from Mighty Mango, we formed a new band called By George with two other students from NC State University, Chaandmon Croft (drums) and Will Henshaw (bass). We found Chaandmon through Instagram DMs and didn’t think he would be interested at first. Will actually subbed in for our old bassist at a show years before he joined the band when the other guy wasn’t available. Then Chaandmon and I were like, “Hey, remember that guy Will who played with us one time?” From then on it just worked. I spent my four years of school switching between weeks of class and weekends traveling from my school in Northern Virginia to NC State to play shows and write with them.

For the first couple of years, it was about the music and the chance to have fun outside of school and other obligations. But around 2020, we started getting inspired by a collective mission to create a community around music and share our thoughts on life through our songs and performances. Upon rebranding our image to a mascot named George who represents all of us, we came together with a focus on Live energy and our message. We all live together in a house in Raleigh now and are playing all the time. We leave every show exhausted from jumping, breaking drumsticks and strings, dropping to the floor for solos, and singing at the top of our lungs, and I don’t see that ever-changing.

Everyone is dedicated to being the best they can at their instrument and tries to do something a little different every show. Most recently, we’ve come together on music for a new EP that steers George more in the direction of alternative rock and alt-pop with blues influences. Lyrically, it’s best described as a look into my ever-changing thoughts on the human condition and relationships, in the hopes that something I say is relatable enough to stick with you. Everyone gets through the struggle differently, but we want our music to make a community out of almost any group of people.

We are on our biggest tour yet right now, heading from New York all the way down to Savannah, GA to share our message. We also recently welcomed Evan Addison from Boone NC into the band, who brings a Bluegrass and country background to our music. He’s crazy good at writing original riffs and is a perfect fit for the group.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
More recently, the road has gotten smoother as we’ve all come together on our dedication to George. Our crowds have gotten more involved, and we’ve been connecting with people like never before. But for most of our history, it hasn’t been as smooth. That’s perfectly fine though, especially in an industry where “do it yourself” would be an understatement.

We’ve gone through more than a few member changes, hours-long talks about where our music is headed shows with little or no audience, and all-night drives asking at 4 am how we are going to play our fourth show in a row on one weekend in another state. The biggest challenge is probably the lack of a “way of doing things.” With other jobs, you’ve got a pretty set idea of how you can advance your career, but music is the Wild West.

We love it that way though, so every struggle is worth it. It just means we’re blazing our own trail and figuring out the best way to bring our music and message to the world. Every stage is the chance to connect with someone new and every new fan is the chance to create an enduring relationship between our music and people.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We are a touring band with original music. We play on stages through the East Coast (hopefully we can come to the West Coast soon!), record original music in various studios, practice all the time, and handle the band’s business affairs when we aren’t doing any of the above.

I would say that we specialize in delivering a meaningful musical experience for audience members, whether that is having fun with friends while listening to music or connecting with a certain part of our show, a cover, or our original songs. I am most proud of our willingness to push past so much change and adversity as a band, so many points where you could’ve looked at us and said it didn’t make much sense to continue.

Past experiences brought us super close as a group, and especially on stage, we are musically locked in with each other. Finally, I think that what sets us apart is the community we have already created that doesn’t have to be directly about us as band members or about our music. We have a mascot for a reason. I’ve met a number of people who just like the frog and thought the merch was cool.

As long as the frog stands for our musical efforts and is a symbol of bringing people together, we are happy.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
I think the most important lesson we’ve learned along the way is that the relationships we develop within the band are the life force of this project at any point in its life.

A natural result of being an independent band, running sound for your own shows, traveling a long way, managing your own finances, etc. is occasional confusion and misunderstandings. We’ve learned over the years that when questions get asked immediately and problems get solved as quickly as possible, there’s hardly ever a bad moment.

Sure, we’ve had some late nights, forget a piece of equipment, someone showed up late, stuck on a part of an original song, but when you’re as tight as we are with each other, we keep moving.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: bandbygeorge.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bandbygeorge/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bandbygeorge/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@bandbygeorge

Image Credits
Sam Moody at Visual Vibrations (https://www.instagram.com/visual.vibrations/) and Colin Scanlon