With a little help from his friends -- specifically, a now ex-girlfriend -- Jacob Davis turned his very first show into a recurring gig.

A Shreveport, La., native, Davis was a senior in college when he talked a Baton Rouge bar owner into letting him play at the establishment on a Wednesday night.

"I knew probably 10 songs," Davis recalls to Taste of Country in his RISERS interview, "and I just got up there, and he was like, 'Man, I need two and a half hours out of you.'

"So, I just played 10 songs over and over again as long as I could," Davis adds with a chuckle -- but, "luckily," his then-girlfriend was in a sorority, so she brought her friends, who brought their friends, who brought ... well, you get the idea.

"They showed up, and before I knew it, it was an every-Wednesday-night thing," Davis continues, "and it went on for about three or four months."

Davis earned a degree in environmental science, with a focus on geology, from Louisiana State University, and went to work for an oil company before making the move to Nashville to focus on his music career.

“They put me on an oil rig, working on the night shift. I realized real quick I’d made a mistake,” Davis recalls. “I did that, and I wanted to quit immediately, but my parents were really stern on giving this company a year … But while working there, I learned how to get up and go to work, how to be on time and how to pay my bills. So I feel like I grew up a lot in that year, and then moved to Nashville.”

Davis signed with Black River Entertainment in 2016. On March 24, he'll release his debut EP, What I Wanna Be; the five-song project features his debut single, “What I Wanna Be.”

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