"I lost my place and all my stuff - my great-grandparents' dining-room table, the cigar box with all my ticket stubs, all these things I could never get back," he says, adding that he was one of the lucky ones. "My dad had a house in Chico, so I had somewhere to go. A lot of people were living in tents at Walmart."
Brawny yet sensitive, Smith channels the depth of his many experiences into his sturdy, riff-driven songs, which is one reason they're connecting: This year his hit 'World on Fire' spent 10 straight weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's country radio chart."
"Dude, it's insane," he says with a laugh. "Bailey is literally like my little brother. When he first got to Nashville, he was like, 'Man, I'm just so glad to meet you.' I said, 'Thank you, buddy. Why are you talking so fast?'"
Smith, who grew up in the small Northern California town of Paradise, did a lot of living before he made it big, including a brief marriage that ended in divorce and a failed attempt to become a contemporary Christian musician.
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