Braison Cyrus intended someone to sing his new songs, but he didn’t expect it would be him. Writing a song for his sister Noah and others for the country superstar Orville Peck, the 31-year-old eventually realized he was making his own album, “From Now On,” out this Friday.
“I had this album put together in kind of a weird way because I had a lot of these songs written and intended for me to pitch to Orville Peck because he cut one of my songs right back in 2023,” Cyrus says in a recent interview. “And so the title track and this other song called ‘Bridge Between Two Towns’ that’s on the album, these were all songs that I wrote at a time whenever I was thinking I was going to pitch these to Orville Peck. So it was weird that they were put together in the way that they were just just because they weren’t even intended for me.
“I think writing stuff for other people kind of did change the way that I put together this particular record.”
The Nashville-based artist with the famous last name — another sister is Miley, his father is Billy Ray and his brother Trace was in the band Metro Station — did not start recording until he was in his early 20s, a late bloomer compared to his siblings. Despite the pop and country that is stock and trade of the family business, as a teen he gravitated to indie folk and EDM — former Band of Horses member Tyler Ramsey is on the new album, as are Noah and Miley.
“Starting when I was like 15, I got obsessed with My Morning Jacket. I’m still probably one of the biggest My Morning Jacket fans out there,” he says. “I really grew up, for lack of a better phrase, in the Studio City, Ventura, California, Ventura Boulevard, kind of skateboard hipster kind of scene whenever I was in high school. I was really into my Morning Jacket, mainly, and Band of Horses. I remember the very first Fleet Foxes record came out when I was in maybe 10th or 11th grade. And that that was huge,” he adds recalling, “I used to drive Noah to school, and we would listen to that First Fleet Foxes album, and me and her would practice harmonies in the car to ‘White Winter Hymnal.'”
Other early influences included electronic acts like Justice and Crystal Castles.
However, Cyrus’ teenage interest in music did not translate to career aspirations at first.
“I wasn’t really working on it or planning to do music at all. Even when I moved back [to Nashville] I went to film school. I was like, oh, man, there’s kind of a blossoming film community, and maybe I can move back to Nashville and sort of be a big fish in a small pond, so to speak, for the Nashville kind of film scene.”
That started to change when he met the singer-songwriter Griffin House, one of the first people he connected with when he moved back to Nashville at 22. They worked together on “I’ll Never Leave You,” Cyrus’ first single, which he dropped in 2018.
Last year, he began releasing singles from the new album: “Know This,” with Miley, “As Long As You Stay,” with Noah. This January, he put out “Looking Forward to the Past” with Ramsey. He wrote “As Long As You Stay” with Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold, bringing the siblings’ love for the Seattle band full circle.
It was the first time Braison worked with Miley.
“I’ve never really worked with Trace or my dad until recently. And even then, we weren’t singing together. It was me producing his record. Me and Miley, I wasn’t really sure how it was gonna go. I just asked her to do it because I thought it’d be fun.”
As part of the rollout for “From Now On,” Cyrus will perform at the Franklin Theatre near Nashville, with special guests Noah and Sierra Lundy, on March 14, as well as a SXSW showcase in Austin on the 19th.
Told that it appears that his career is growing at a manageable rate, he replied, “100 percent.”
“I’m exactly where I want to be. I would always rather be growing rather than hit a peak and then immediately tumble backwards. And I think that I want to pace myself. I think what you do is just as important as what you turn down. I think right now I’m kind of at a good place where I can pick and choose what I want to do, pick and choose who I work with and and take my time to make what I want to make.”
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