Despite all those times when the tones went off at the station and he bravely rushed out to respond to an emergency, Tyler Braden says he still gets the jitters when he hits the stage to perform.
"Every time, really," Braden said. "I mean, it wouldn't be fun if you didn't, but they go away pretty quickly as soon as you hit that first note, that first word. I'm nervous to some degree with every show, it doesn't matter if it's 500 or 20,000 people."
Braden, who departed his firefighting career in early 2020 after signing with Warner Music Nashville as a full-time country recording artist, recently spoke with Firehouse about the seven years he spent in the fire service and how much the industry's unbreakable brotherhood means to him and his music.
"I get asked all the time if I miss the fire service and the broad answer is yes, but the main thing I miss is the brotherhood and the camaraderie," he said. "Having to live together a third of the time, you become lifelong friends. I still have close friends that I'll have for the rest of my life."
A native of Slapout, Alabama, Braden's sound contains everything that's great about modern Nashville-area country music with a solid acoustic foundation underneath soaring rock guitars topped off by his soulful mid-range vocals.
His latest track "Brother," which will drop in early May to coincide with International Firefighters Day, is an ode to the men and women who became like family to him in the fire service, which is evident in heartfelt lyrics that focus on how friends and colleagues will always be there for you when you need them the most:
"Brother, let me be your shelter, I'll never leave you all alone
I can be the one you call on when you're low"
Tyler's time in the fire service began in 2013 in Alabama when he realized he needed to pursue some kind of career. He and his roommate, whose father was a retired firefighter, decided to apply with Montgomery Fire-Rescue and both were accepted. Together they went through 22 weeks of recruit training and then stood side-by-side at their graduation ceremony because their last names just happened to be in sequence alphabetically.
Even though he says he "wasn't one of those guys who wanted to be a firefighter my whole life," he embraced and excelled in his new career, eventually becoming a rope rescue and heavy rescue technician and working on both BLS and ALS rigs in Montgomery.
Working in a busy and low-income section of the city, he and his crews ran about 18 to 20 calls per 24-hour shift in his first year, and like many firefighters he vividly remembers his very first call, which involved a victim with a gunshot wound to the leg.
"It was my first shift out of recruit school at my new station," Tyler said. "When I got there it was the first time I had ever seen that much blood in my life, and it was just learning to watch my superiors switch modes from hardcore training into leading me through a call. At the time I was an EMT Basic, and I remember watching the paramedics take care of (the victim). But since I was new, my job was basically to just clean the porch," he added with a laugh.
He also clearly remembers the first time he responded to a structure fire and how all of his rookie assumptions were immediately thrown out the window.
"I'll never forget my first structure fire and how you're told you can't see when you get inside. In the back of your mind you think, 'Yeah, it will be hard to see,' and then you get in there and you realize you can't see your hand in front of your face," he said.
While spending his first three years as a firefighter in Montgomery, music was always there for him as a creative outlet, and a part of the camaraderie he speaks about was having his colleagues by his side to support his efforts every step of the way.
"I always played acoustic shows at restaurants and places like that in Montgomery. And what was great about that was I had great support from everyone at the station. If I did a show in Montgomery, 75 percent of the crowd would be Montgomery Fire-Rescue personnel. That was always awesome."
Eventually, the allure of country music got Tyler thinking about a move to Nashville, which is the beating heart of the national scene for aspiring artists.
"Some friends of mine had some success in the music industry and told me that you kind of have to move to Nashville, so I took their word for it," he said. "I was sitting in my station in Montgomery and I googled 'Tennessee firefighting jobs' and Brentwood was testing. I ended up testing for four open spots with about a hundred other people and got offered one of them."
Tyler accepted the job and relocated to East Nashville, which was close to the department in suburban Brentwood where he would spend the next four years working fire calls and rescues while continuing to pursue his music ambitions.
"Here in Brentwood, it was a smaller department so everyone had to be a jack-of-all-trades type," he said. "I would say 50 percent of the department was in every single thing, they were in hazmat, they were on a rescue team."
Despite the move to a new state and a new department, Tyler emphasizes how much it meant to him that the camaraderie he first experienced in Montgomery remained in place in Brentwood, particularly when it involved his pursuit of music.
"In Brentwood, we worked 48 hours at a time and I still had guys who would come and leave their families and work for me while I was the one getting paid, and I'm going out and having fun doing a show," he said.
Tyler signed his Warner Music deal last December and resigned his post in Brentwood to become a full-time musician, but he admits that he still feels that pull toward service when he experiences something like the sound of a siren racing down the street. The current state of things across the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic has made those existing emotions even stronger.
"It didn't even take COVID and quarantine for that to happen," he said. "It was literally just a few weeks after leaving the service, and I was in Chicago. I played a show there and it was very late at night and I was walking outside my hotel just checking out the area and I heard a siren and the truck went by and I was immediately wondering what kind of call they were on and where they were going. It happens on almost a daily basis. Once it's in you, it stays in you."
While talking about the struggles responders and their families are dealing with during this national crisis, Tyler offered a message to all his brothers and sisters out there who are still putting it all on the line for their communities during every shift every single day.
"The biggest thing to say is to just keep your head up and know that the people around you, the brothers and sisters can keep you grounded and help you keep your head on straight and help you through hard times. One thing I always learned is that if it does get tough on you to not keep your mouth shut. Talk to the ones around you, talk to your family at the station and they'll help you get through.
"The biggest thing is to not keep it inside or stay quiet because everybody knows what it's like."
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You can learn more about Tyler Braden on his official website, listen to some of his music on Spotify and get to know him on Facebook and Twitter.
Check out the video for the single "Brother" below, which features images honoring emergency response and health care workers:
