What happens when raw musical talent meets relentless entrepreneurial drive? You get Shi Eubank. This week, we’re thrilled to feature the multi-faceted country rock artist who’s not only captivating audiences with his unique sound but also inspiring with his incredible life story. From his early days fronting Savage After Midnight to building eleven roofing companies and a sunglasses brand, Shi’s journey is a testament to unwavering determination. But beyond the impressive resume, you’ll discover a man deeply committed to authenticity, mental wellness, and giving back. Prepare to be inspired as Shi shares his unfiltered insights on personal growth, the power of music, and why embracing your true self is the key to unlocking limitless potential.
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Journey To Authentic Living & Limitless Potential With Shi Eubank
I got a good guest. I know I always say I am super excited, but I am super excited to welcome Shi Eubank. Shi, how are you?
I’m doing great. It couldn’t be better to be on this with you.
Thank you for spending the time with us. I want to introduce you and tell everybody about you and some of the things that you’re doing. Shi is a country rock singer, songwriter, and producer from Memphis, Tennessee. He blends gritty Southern storytelling, hip hop cadences, and rock energy. He gained early recognition as the frontman of Savage After Midnight. He’s now a solo artist and has released independent singles, including Bar Back, None of My Business, and Sentimentals, which is a great tune.
His lyrics capture raw life experiences from growing up in poverty to personal resilience, rooted in authenticity and storytelling. Shi combines his raw musical talent with relentless entrepreneurial drive. He owns eleven roofing companies, a genetic testing firm, a river-tubing outfit, five cabins, a sunglasses brand, FAKE Apparel, and is collaborating on a distillery.
Charismatic and unapologetically bold on social media, Shi’s persona belies a deep respect for women. He emphasizes the powerful women in his life who guide and ground him daily. Beyond music, he’s committed to giving back. A forthcoming album will donate all proceeds to breast cancer awareness in honor of friends affected by the disease, which is very cool. With over 30 songs written, which I can’t wait to hear the rest of them, and new projects also underway, Shi Eubank is more than a country singer. He’s a multifaceted entrepreneur, artist, and survivor who continues to challenge expectations and live fearlessly. Shi, welcome. How are you?
What a reception.
It’s good, right?
Yeah, it’s great.
You got your hands on a lot of different things. Honestly, I don’t know how you keep track of it all.
You go to bed writing down a list, and then you wake up every day and start checking things off the list and adding to the list. You keep going.
I love it. Many of my readers are young adults. One of the areas that many kids struggle with in terms of anxiety and depression is how to soothe themselves. I’ve found so many young people talking to me about music and the meditative quality and the spiritual quality, in some sense, of music. I wanted to know from an artist’s point of view how you see music and what kind of role it plays for you.
The Role Of Music & Storytelling In Memory & Healing
I suffer from short-term memory loss, so I don’t remember a lot of things. I’m constantly having to remind myself. Any of you guys that are out there that are feeling like you’re forgetful all the time, or you feel like less intelligent because you can’t remember things as well as other people, it’s a very normal thing. That’s why I go back to what I said. I make lists. Physically writing things down almost tends to work a little better than voice memos and things of that nature. As it transfers into music, when I hear a song, and I’ve always had this, it would jog certain parts of my memory and allow me to remember these things that I’ve gone through in my life. To be able to give that back to somebody is special to me.
I write my story as a way to remember them, but also to share those stories. Hopefully, if they impact somebody’s life, then maybe twenty years from now, when they’re riding down the street in a whole different state of mind, it can take them back to that place they once were before, whether it be happy, sad, or whatever, and realize that that was just a point in time. That didn’t have to be forever. That feeling didn’t last forever. It’s also good to be able to reflect. It’s good and healthy to be able to go back, take those things that you went through, those elements, and remember them to remember how you got to where you are now.
I love that. Your new song, Sentimentals, did that for me.
I went through some bad stuff with that one.
The outcome is awesome. I have to say, I love that song. I love your vibe. How would you describe it? Country Rock?
I don’t know. It’s Shi Country.
There you go. I like it.
I did rock for years. I went in to do the solo record. I was in the studio with my buddy Andrew Baylis. We were working on a couple of songs. I went in to track the songs, and I was like, “Recut that.” He was like, “What?” I was like, “My Tennessee is coming out.” He was like, “We’re keeping that.” I was like, “No, you’re going to recut that.” He was like, “We’re keeping that.” I was like, “No.” We did this back-and-forth banter. He was like, “You need to lean into this more and quit avoiding it like you have been your entire life.”
When I started doing music, country wasn’t the coolest genre to be in. Rock and roll was it, so you buried your accent. You buried your Tennessee, not shamefully, but you did. It wasn’t it. Fast forward to the future, and I had to understand that I’m at a different point in my life. I’m at a point in my life where I’ve got a lot of stories to tell, and I’ve got a lot of things to share. Country is a great outlet for that.
The way that country is written is more storytelling. It’s more fixated on the journey of whatever you’re going through. When I leaned in, I said, “I’m going to let these songs write themselves.” As we did that, I quit categorizing things. I quit putting things into a box and saying, “This is the way it’s got to be to be country,” or, “This is the way it’s got to be to be whatever it might be.” I started leaning in to tell the story and make sure it fits and suits your creative outlet.
It’s like what I said to you off here when we first started. I don’t like scripting conversations. I feel like they’re artificial. I don’t think they resonate with people. Your songs resonate with people. They resonate with me. Part of that is you’re leaning in, being honest, and being who you are. You could come off super polished, and I think that resonates less with people.
People have seen it for so long with all the gold chains, running around, and the exuberant things. I’ve obtained some of those exuberant things in life, but it’s not about the glitz, the glam, and the flash. It’s about the rawness, connection, and being honest.
Embracing Authenticity & Transparency
I appreciate it. Let me ask you this. I don’t get a chance to talk to artists often. Many of my young readers listen to the words. They listen to the music, and they’re soothed by it. I’m curious if you were to talk to your young adult self, your 18 or 19-year-old side, and offer some advice in terms of life. We’ve lived our years past that. I’m wondering what comes to mind.
The first thing I would say is, “Stop closing yourself off, boxing yourself in, and putting everything into this category.” Naturally, we do that as human beings. We’ve been taught as kids that everything is compartmentalized, almost. When you start to understand that there is life in the gray area and there is life in the honesty of “I made a mistake.” Be forthcoming with it because how you react to those mistakes is what creates the person you are. I would look back at myself and say, “Stop trying to hide as many things and start being more open and forward about your mistakes and about your journey. You’re going to be more respected for that honesty and transparency.”
Stop trying to hide so much. Start being more open and honest about your mistakes and your journey. You'll earn more respect through that honesty and transparency. Share on XWe always look at the past like it’s better than it was. We create this false sense of reality about the past that we’ve been through, because maybe we don’t want to go back through it emotionally, or whatever it might be. We always talk about, “The ‘80s were better. The ‘90s were better. The 2000s were better.” Today is better because I’m alive and I’m here.
When you’re doing that and you’re getting that pattern of not being honest and being real about the things that have happened, you create this false sense of reality. You also create this false sense of expectation of where you should be and what you should be doing. You’re like, “I’m not where I should be.” You are where you should be, but tomorrow’s a new day. How do you want to change that?
That goes back to being honest about the reality of where you’ve been. Stop trying to hide that piece of you. Don’t be ashamed. If you’ve been through something horrific, you don’t have to sit there and talk about it openly unless you’re asked, but you don’t need to shelter and hide it. It’s the reality of who you are and who you’ve become, and people will respect that.
I certainly do. By being honest about that and leaning into it, what you come to realize is that everyone has a story. You find that your story intersects with theirs somewhere. I appreciate that. It’s good advice for young people. I’m curious. The phrase mental health and wellness is a buzz phrase that’s being talked about a lot. The mental health of young people is not great. The anxiety numbers are up. The depressive numbers are up. I wonder. When you hear the phrase mental health and wellness, what comes to mind for you?
Mental Health As An “Exercise” & Reframing Stress
When you’re thinking about health and wellness, those two words, you’re usually thinking about something physical. It’s something you can feel and decipher through. You’re like, “It makes sense that I wasn’t feeling well.” For a lot of people, I don’t feel like they exercise their mental health and work on their mental health as they should.
I talk about this with a lot of young people in business that I coach. They can be older than me, but they’re young in business or young in whatever it is they’re going through. A few years ago, I had $1,500 in my name, and I was driving around in a 2004 Honda Accord with a headliner sagging over my head. I was laying tile on my hands and knees, making $12 an hour.
I went from that to deciding to make a change in my life and deciding to hold myself accountable. Through that accountability, I was able to decipher certain things and stop pushing blame off into other places, but put it back on myself. I didn’t let that blame swell and hold me down. I didn’t use it as a crutch. I looked at it and went, “I need to be stronger than that.” I identified it, exercised it, and worked on it.
I sold one of my companies for nine figures. I created this company to be able to afford to go and play music. In the same year I created this roofing company, I signed a record deal with Sony Red. I’m juggling this company, everything that I ever wanted, and this record deal, but I have no money. I was trying to figure it out.
Going back to the exercising portion, you have to take care of yourself physically for your health and fitness to be great. I feel like mental health is skipped out on in that aspect. I feel like a lot of people identify what it is, but they do nothing about it. I feel like it’s something that needs to be worked on for it to be strong. I feel like when people don’t work on it, they negate that piece of themselves.
Maybe working on it means surrounding yourself with people who aren’t going to put you down, and they’ll raise you up. Maybe working on it means positive affirmations to yourself. You get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say, “I’m going to do this.” Maybe it’s creating small ways for you to win so that you gain the confidence that you need. You develop that mentality to grow, to move, and to surpass other things.
I don’t listen to anybody. If you tell me I can’t, I’m going to show you, but it wasn’t always that way with me. At some points in my life, it was, “Are they right? Am I a loser?” I grew up with nothing. I grew up in North Memphis in the hood, and we had nothing. I didn’t even know until I got older how much we didn’t have. I started to get outside of my neighborhood, as I was becoming a young adult, and I started to look at what everybody else had. I then started to feel bad about myself. I was like, “I’m poor.”
I started to go into this victim mentality and this crutch that a lot of people fall into. You have to work on your mental health like you work on anything else. Anything that you want strongly in your life, to me, needs to be a process that is worked on and needs to be something that you don’t avoid. You don’t just sit there and say, “This is the way my life is.” You are allowing your life to be like that. You’ve got to get out there and work on it.
Well said. I have to pick up on something you said earlier. You were talking about building your self-worth, and that freeing you from judgment from other people. That is so important. You made it. There’s a transition from listening to everyone to listening to nobody and working on yourself. That’s worked out for you. It’s great advice. It’s quite a story. In many ways, your success should be a role model story for young people to recognize. One of the areas I talk a lot about in this show is social media. I find that so many young people are so obsessed with how they’re viewed on social media, who’s viewing them, who’s liking them, and who’s following them that they start to lose sight of themselves.
I agree.
I’m glad you brought that up. It’s a tremendous suggestion. The concept of how you internalize that and then shift it from listening to everybody to listening to nobody, and the change that comes out of that is huge for people. I appreciate you putting that out there. I’m wondering in terms of what you do as a musician. You’re around your businesses, and you’re around your music. You captured how they intersected when you sold a business, and it gave you the ability. I’m wondering. Where would you say your real passion lies?
The Drive For Music & The Fine Line Between Quitting & Resetting
100% music. Everything in my life is to be able to afford to play music. It doesn’t matter. It’s been a wild ride. We toured forever in a fifteen-passenger van. We toured around, playing with every rock band out there, from Sick Puppies to Shinedown to Papa Roach. You name it, we played with them. We shared the stage with them, as well as arenas.
We were driving around in a fifteen-passenger van. We were so broke. We were warming up raviolis in the motor of the van. It was going from that to going, “This isn’t it. I need to take a step back and punt.” That’s another thing. A lot of people are afraid to hit the reset button. They’re afraid that they’ve traveled this far down the road, and that if they let something go, it’s gone forever.
There’s a fine line between quitting and resetting. I had to take a reset. I was like, “Why is this not working?” My song sucked. We could get up there like Chuck E. Cheese and dance around on the stage all day long, but we weren’t connecting. I had to look at that, and then I had to look at, “How can I afford to push this music?” It takes money.
I was then like, “I want to be on the road. I know other artists out there are craving the same thing.” That’s when I built a roofing company. I built a community that was able to support each other. Guys would go out on the road. Other people would pick up their workload while they were gone and split commissions or whatever it had to be. I developed a system. It was selfishly made at first because it was so that my bandmates and I could go in, afford to be out on the road, and not be stressed out when we came home. Our lives were falling apart, and we were trying to pick them back up.
Good for you for doing that. It sounds like a rough way to live and a much easier way to live. It takes a lot of grit, I’m sure, to get there.
I would get up at 6:00 in the morning, get out there, and work construction until 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. I would then get out, go to rehearsals, get out of rehearsals, take a nap, and go in at 7:00 or 8:00 at night to wash FedEx trucks until 1:00 in the morning. That was six days a week. The other days, I would pick up any odd work I could to build up the bank that it was going to take to start progressing.
Good for you.
You’ve got to have that drive. If you want to change, you can’t look at everybody else and what they’re doing because their path is different than yours. I went to 15 or 16 people, trying to get a loan. I was like, I can take $100,000 and turn it into $1 million. Loan me $100,000.” Nobody would give me the money. None of my friends was doing well for themselves. At first, I was like, “It’s because of my neighborhood where I came from, and where I grew up. It’s because I grew up in Raleigh. They don’t trust me. I’m some poor dirtball kid.”
You’ve got to have that drive. If you want to change, you can’t focus on what everyone else is doing. Their path is different from yours. Share on XMy aunt had told me this. She said, “If one person says something, it may or may not be true. If everybody has the same story, then it doesn’t make it true, but you should at least look into it.” Everybody was denying me. I had this victim mentality. I had to take a step back and go, “I’ve never turned $100,000 into $1 million. There’s no proof that I’ve done this or that I’m able to accomplish this. Why should they give me their hard-earned money?”
I went in and figured out, “How do I get a loan? What do I need to do for that?” I worked for two years to afford to do it. I put myself on a regimen. I ate off $5 a day at the same McDonald’s for 2 years straight. I did not falter from that. It was $5 a day, same McDonald’s off that Dollar Menu, same one every day for two years straight. Most people start their new year, new me thing. They work for about two weeks, and they let it go. You’ve got to dedicate yourself to change. Change isn’t always easy. It’s a change. It’s not always going to be comfortable.
They’re usually not comfortable.
This is something I tell a lot of people, too. I look at stress differently. The way I look at stress is I look at it as an indicator. When you’re a kid and your hands, knees, and ankles hurt, and you look up at your parents like, “My whole body aches,” your parents are like, “Those are growing pains.” It’s a physical stress. I can feel that, but I know I’m growing.
The way that I look at stress is if I’m stressed, I’m growing in some aspect. I’m watching this happen. I’m loading this plate. I’m putting the stress load on myself so that I can become something greater. I monitor it. That takes a little bit of that mental stress off me, being able to identify what I’m putting myself through. Does that make sense?
It makes a ton of sense. It’s a great explanation for young people. Growth in any area is uncomfortable. Your dedication and your story around commitment are admirable, certainly, but it also speaks to that’s what it takes. If you want to truly make a change, change doesn’t happen in two days. It happens in two years, eating the dollar menu. Let me ask you a question. You’ve been such a good egg about this. I created your intro through a lot of research I did on my own. I’m curious about breast cancer awareness. I felt like there’s a story there somewhere, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about that. Tell me a little bit about that.
The Impact Of Women & Commitment To Breast Cancer Awareness
A lot of the most powerful people in my life that I’ve surrounded myself with are women. My best friend, Shannon Gunz, from Sirius Satellite Radio, when we didn’t have anything in our lives, we had each other. When nobody else believed in me, she was standing beside me the entire way. My previous manager, who is a great friend of mine, Tracy, was amazing in helping move things forward with me. My aunt committed suicide, but she was my best friend growing up. It is what it is. She was a huge part of my life.
I’ve been surrounded by all these positive women throughout the years. My right hand, Lisa Foster, I couldn’t operate without this woman. I could not function day-to-day without her. She is me. She knows more about me than I do. Breast cancer has been ravaging the lives of women forever. I want to do a record where all the features on it are all female features, and then we take all the proceeds from that and donate it all to breast cancer awareness.
I love it.
That’s in the works, too. We’re working on a ton of stuff, but that’s a passion project of mine that I’m not going to let go of until it manifests correctly.
Good for you. That’s awesome. That’s such a great description. You’ve had a lot of mentors, a lot of friends, and a lot of family in your world who are females. That’s a wonderful, charitable contribution to make. That’s an awesome story. You’ve mentioned your aunt. I’m curious. She sounded like an impactful individual in your world. Unfortunately, her life ended that way. I want to ask you a little bit about that. What can you tell us?
Learning From Loss
I’m completely open to talking about it. I have a song on the record called Juliet that’s going to be coming out, which speaks to it. My aunt was my best friend. She was obese. She lived with my grandmother. She only had sex once in her life. When she did, she got pregnant, and then that guy left her with a baby to raise. There was no father figure in my cousin’s life.
My grandmother and my aunt were more like sisters than they were mother-daughter. My aunt was always in my life. Everything that I did, she was my biggest cheerleader and biggest fan. In my failures, she picked me up, brushed me off, and stepped me back out there. She wasn’t the nicest at all times. Sometimes, she gave me that tough love, but it’s what I needed. She was my best friend.
Through the years, as you get older, you start to separate from your parents and some of your loved ones as you venture off. You’re becoming an adult yourself and figuring things out. She was having a hard time with that because my cousin was growing up, getting out of the nest. They were going through those tiffs, as mother and daughter do.
My grandmother got sick. She was in her later years of her life. The only asset they had was their house in Frazier, which is not the greatest area. They had to sell it to be able to try to take care of my grandmother. They moved into an apartment, and my grandmother passed away. My uncle also killed himself. That’s a whole other story. Her brother passed away. There was a lot of that going on and a lot of emotions.
After my grandmother passed and my cousin was out, she was by herself most of the time. Life was splitting things apart, and she was lonely. We’re young, and we’re growing into the adults that we are. She didn’t say anything. She held it all internally. She kept it to herself. We had no idea that she would do what she did. I feel bad that we didn’t check in more. That has been in my head. I don’t allow myself to beat myself up about it, but I can’t lie and say that it hasn’t emotionally struck me, feeling like I could have done more.
She started driving a short bus for handicapped kids. Due to her obesity, she had diabetes. That was the only thing that kept her going. It was the fact that she would get on this bus and help all these little kids through their elements. These were kids who were getting picked on at school. She coached them and said, “It’s okay.” She had a huge heart.
Since the diabetes kicked in and they took over, she started to go blind. She could no longer drive the school bus. She overdosed on her insulin and killed herself. It was pretty tragic. It taught me something. I didn’t go away from that with nothing. Everybody out here is looking at these Instagram people, and they’re like, “We have to be like this.” It’s messing with them mentally that they’re chasing this possibly unattainable goal in their heads.
Everybody out here is looking at these Instagram people and thinking, 'We have to be like this.' It’s messing with them mentally. They're chasing a goal that might be unattainable. Share on XYou also look at the other side of things. Maybe people are hiding things that they shouldn’t be, like my aunt. I’m getting chill bumps. She was one of the best human beings in my world and one of the most impactful in my world. I didn’t let her passing go in vain. It’s taught me a lot. Those are the things that I carry forward, like you show. I’m appreciative of being on this show. Thank you for letting me voice this.
We’re appreciative of you being here. She sounds like an amazing person. Suicide is a topic that comes up all the time on this show. I feel like so many people have been impacted by loss, and so many people have gone through their own story and their own journey. There needs to be learning. There needs to be a conversation.
One of my biggest pushes to create this show is to get out there and talk more about mental health issues. The fact is, most people have something they’re dealing with. To me, there’s no shame in talking about it, connecting with people, and letting people know, “I’m human. I have flaws.” We all have flaws. I’m so thankful you had the years you had with your aunt. We would’ve loved more, but I’m thankful she was such a wonderful human being in your world.
A lesson that we can all learn is to check on people even when you’re not sure if they’re all right. It could be throwing them a, “Are you all right? You don’t look good. Is everything all right?” We’ve got to get more comfortable with that. If someone is not all right, they have to get more comfortable with saying, “Shi, I’m not in a good spot. Can we grab a coffee or something?”
People will be there for you. I find it remarkable that I’ve heard stories over and over again over the years about that. People call a friend, and immediately, they put the brakes on and are like, “Let’s go. Let’s meet right now.” To me, there’s nothing more important than your safety and your health. I appreciate you telling that story. I’m hoping that young people read it. I know it is a little cliché when you hear people say, “You’re never alone.” You’re not. You shouldn’t be. There are good people out there, like you, who can help, listen, and be there.
I appreciate you spending time with us. I know you’re super busy. One thing I’ve learned by talking with you and me as a music listener is that you have this image of music artists and athletes, in particular, for me, and I don’t know why, that they’re not human, and they don’t have problems. You then come to find out they have as many problems as we do. I appreciate you being so down-to-earth about it.
In that vein, I wanted to ask. Part of the conversation of normalizing it forward is me continuing to push the conversation forward and continuing to try to have good people like yourself on the show that people will be interested in. People want to hear your story. They want to hear your background. They want to learn from you. I always ask people to nominate a friend, a coworker, a relative, or someone that you know that you think my reader might want to know. What do you think? Any thoughts?
I have a business partner of mine who has a very interesting story. He comes from the streets, drug dealing, and all that crazy background. His dad was part of the cartel. He has a very interesting story and would be amazing for the show, so that people could see that there’s a way out. He has gone on to do incredible things. He’s got multiple businesses running. I got him when he was 23 years old. He’s a multi-millionaire now.
I would love to talk to him. If he’s willing, I would have him on the show. It sounds amazing. It sounds like he has his own story, as we all do.
He’s got a wild story. It’s super relatable for people. There are a lot of people out there who hide what they’re doing or what they’ve done. It goes back to that sheer honesty, and then understanding that the road you’re on now isn’t the road you have to be on forever. Only you can change that.
I appreciate those words. That’s a good place for us to end our conversation. That’s great advice. It was super talking to you. It’s great to listen to all your new music. Honestly, you have a huge fan up in Connecticut here. I can’t wait for the rest of the songs to come out so we can all listen to them.
Let’s go.
Thanks again. Have a great evening.
Take care.
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About Shi Eubank
Shi Eubank is a country‑rock singer-songwriter and producer from Memphis, Tennessee. He Blends gritty Southern storytelling, hip-hop cadences, and rock energy.
He gained early recognition as the frontman of Savage After Midnight (S.A.M.)—-he is now a solo artist, and has released independent singles in 2025 including “Bar Back” and “None of My Business.” His lyrics capture raw life experiences—from growing up in poverty, to personal resilience—rooted in authenticity and storytelling.
Shi combines his raw musical talent with relentless entrepreneurial drive—he owns eleven roofing companies , a genetic-testing firm, a river-tubing outfit, five cabins, a sunglasses brand, FAKE apparel, and is collaborating on a distillery.
Charismatic and unapologetically bold on social media, Shi’s persona—belies a deep respect for women. He emphasizes that the powerful women in his life guide and ground him daily. Beyond music, he’s committed to giving back : a forthcoming album will donate all proceeds to breast cancer awareness in honor of friends affected by the disease.
With over 30 songs written and new projects always underway, Shi Eubank is more than a country singer—he’s a multifaceted entrepreneur, artist, and survivor who continues to challenge expectations and live fearlessly.
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