Spencer Crandall Is Carving His Own Lane in Country Music: 'I Really Want Success'

"If there's smoke, there's fire and I think there's more than enough smoke now to make people realize that we are here… and we ain't going nowhere," the singer-songwriter tells PEOPLE

Published on March 18, 2022 04:45 PM

Sitting on the left-hand corner of Spencer Crandall's merch table is a clear plastic container filled with hundreds and hundreds of crinkled pieces of paper. Some hold the name of a devoted fan. Others hold a sweet message. And others hold a special song lyric or two.

But someday, all of them will turn into the sweetest of confetti.

"That's the dream," Crandall, 27, says from a cramped dressing room on a Saturday night in Chicago. "Every morning when I journal, I simply write the words 'confetti moment.' Our goal is to have all the pieces of confetti from every show that we've ever played piled up and then when we play our first stadium show, they will explode all at the same time with all the names of everyone that got me there."

And as Crandall continues out on tour with fellow firecracker Lauren Alaina, this celebratory confetti is beginning to accumulate quickly.

"We have bags and bags and bags of them right now," he chuckles of the confetti created by his close-knit group of fans that he lovingly refers to as "The Stadium Gang." "I don't want to get to that stadium someday feeling like I am surrounded by strangers. I want it to feel like we did this together."

Crandall is, in fact, "doing it" at this very moment.

He recently dropped his new single "Red Flags," which he wrote alongside Gus Ross and Luke Eisner. His current single, "Made," has garnered over 12.5M streams since its release in mid-September. Add that to the viral success of "My Person" and the ongoing love affair with his millions of social media followers, and Crandall certainly seems to have set himself up for country music success.

"I can write these songs in little rooms in Nashville and then you put them on your phone and hope it turns into something," says Crandall, a former football player who grew up in Colorado loving Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney, eventually moving to Nashville in 2016. "You just sit back hoping that these songs are going to touch people's hearts."

That mission has in fact been accomplished, from people playing "My Person" at their wedding to hearing from fans ("I'd rather call them friends") who made the decision to avert divorce simply because the words of Crandall's songs hit their collective heart.

"We really do focus on 'The Stadium Gang' and the fans," Crandall tells PEOPLE. "I think that is what is going to get us there and what is going to keep us there."

'There" symbolizes a multitude of things for Crandall at the moment, from finally standing on that stadium stage someday to hearing his name called at an awards show.

"I was watching the ACM Awards, and we have the streams that they have and we have the fans that they have," says Crandall, failing to mention the 'they' he is referring to. "That means that we can't be too far behind. If there's smoke, there's fire and I think there's more than enough smoke now to make people realize that we are here… and we ain't going nowhere."

Certainly, all these goals that Crandall carries with him are driving him towards professional success. But they currently aren't helping him much in the dating department.

And according to him, that's OK.

"I really want success and I really want to get married someday, but they are both a bit out of my control," concludes Crandall, who plans to release an entire album in 2022. "I just try to focus on the best version of myself and hopefully that will attract the right person. Should I probably go on a few more dates? Yes." He laughs. "It's definitely something that I don't think about as much as maybe other guys my age, I guess because I'm really loving what I am doing right now."