Guitarist, keyboardist, singer and songwriter Coy Bowles has been part of the Zac Brown Band since 2007, co-writing hits including “Colder Weather” and “Knee Deep” and earning a trio of Grammy wins along the way.
But when he’s not lighting up stages with ZBB’s signature freewheeling, jam-band vibe, Bowles is crafting music for another audience: kids.
In 2020, Bowles released his first children’s album, Music for Tiny Humans. On Friday, he released a follow-up called Up and Up, crafting the album’s 13 kid-aimed songs with collaborator Carlos Sosa, who has also toured with Zac Brown Band.
The album features songs such as “Dance, Dance, Dance,” “I’m Hungry,” “See the World in Color” and “The Clean Up Song,” the latter of which was inspired by a friend of his who was tired of hearing the same song sung over and over when it was time for kids to clean up in the classroom. At the same time, Bowles and Sosa had been speaking about the 1987 Run-D.M.C. classic “It’s Tricky,” admiring its production and how modern and catchy the song is, nearly four decades after its release. Bowles wanted to write kids’ music that sounded modern and in line sonically with some of the melodies and beats kids are hearing around them. He also wanted to shy away from what he calls “toxic positivity.”
“These songs aren’t always just sunshine every day,” he tells Billboard. “The song ‘How Do You Feel’ is about doing tough things. It’s not toxic positivity. There’s real songs about ‘I miss my mom’ or ‘I’m pretty sad right now, but I know things will change and we all go through things.’”
The album also has plenty of moments of levity, such as “I’m Hungry,” inspired by Bowles’ daughters, Hattie and Millie.
“They would come down and listen to a song and be like, ‘Dad, I love it. I’m hungry,’” Bowles recalls. “I’d give ‘em some food, we’d work on a song more, and they’d come down later, listen to it and say, ‘Oh, it’s even better now. Dad, I’m hungry.’ Then Carlos would be like, ‘Dude, is that all they ever say?’ So we started making kids’ voices and saying, ‘I’m hungry, I’m hungry.’ And he looked at me and was like, ‘Dude, that’s really good actually.’ So he and I, being a place where there’s not a lot of rules and regulations when we’re writing this stuff and humor can be part of it, it just turned into this cool, funny song about being hungry. So the kids had a lot to do with it and influenced the direction.”
Bowles’ albums Up and Up and Music for Tiny Humans extend his creative work in writing and releasing children’s books since 2012, when he released the book Amy Giggles, Laugh Out Loud, based on the story of a friend who was bullied for her laugh as a child.
“I wrote songs my whole life. I got to a place where I was on a tour bus with 12 people and you really can’t write songs by yourself — there’s no corner to go write in,” he says. “There’s always someone around, so I just started writing anything that popped into my head. I started writing short stories and jotting down stuff that was happening with the band in a journal. It felt like it was keeping me healthy, mentally and creatively. Zac [Brown] had three kids at the time, and I showed him a few things I wrote. He said, ‘That would make a great children’s book. I have three kids and we’re reading books constantly.’”
Amy Giggles, Laugh Out Loud resonated with readers. “It started connecting with teachers because of the anti-bullying sentiment. I had no kids at the time, and I didn’t know many teachers at the time as far as early education, but I started getting Facebook posts about them having ‘Amy Giggles Day’ in their classrooms and kids dressing up like Amy Giggles. I started connecting with teachers to create content for their classrooms and it expanded from there.”
Since then, he’s released books including When You’re Feeling Sick, Will Powers: Where There’s a Will There’s a Way, and Behind the Little Red Door. Bowles has even done some public speaking to encourage teachers.
“Almost everybody who’s successful in life, they have somebody who cared about them. And some people, the only person in their life who’s sheltering them and guiding them with love is their teacher,” he says. “I think that they’re overlooked sometimes, and I want to make it my life’s purpose to shine light on teachers and let them know how important they are to our society as of now and the future.”
Bowles has always been connected to the education system — he was a guitar and vocal instructor for eight years — but over the past five years, he’s been actively providing content that parents and educators can use at home and in their classrooms, including a social-emotional learning kit with Lakeshore Learning that incorporated songs from his first children’s album.
“That’s been successful and is in a lot of classrooms, so we decided to make another with Lakeshore, and the music we were writing for Up and Up is part of that. We were talking with teachers and they said they would love to have transition songs, songs that signal different parts of the day. We have a song about washing hands, a song about leaving school to go home. But so many people who do that try to make it very on the nose, and we tried not to do that.”
He’s deepened his focus on offering music and content for kids through his company called CoyCo (Creative Opportunity Yields Creative Output), offering a range of products including worksheets, the Lakeshore Learning Kits that focus on topics including social-emotional learning, language and literacy, and his previously released books.
“My goal is to be one of the nimblest companies, hopefully creating content that’s viable for what teachers are going through,” Bowles says. “Because we self-publish, there’s not a lot of red tape. If I sit down with teachers and they are like, ‘We are seeing difficulty with mental health right now,’ a few months later I can have a book and some songs and videos ready to be played in the classroom or at home. My goal is to be a leading content creator in the education space and in the kids space.”