Marty Coolidge left Homer in 2001 after high school to join the Navy, but his love for his hometown is clear in his music.
Coolidge, who uses the stage name Banner Johnson, has amassed more than 500,000 streams since releasing his first singles in February 2023. His first album, “Gasoline and Purple Weed,” released last week on Spotify and Apple Music.
“Leaving home at 18, even though you’re considered an adult, you’re still a kid,” Coolidge said. “Growing up in Homer, it’s a small community. Everyone knows everyone. Leaving that world and experiencing a bigger world with different cultures and personalities from all walks of life, I always had that pull back to Homer. It was always a big sense of comfort to me.”
Coolidge and his brother Cameron Coolidge live in Clayton, North Carolina, and work under Cameron Coolidge’s record label Tip Jar Records.
“The idea was for musicians that never really had a chance or an opportunity,” Cameron Coolidge said. “Maybe they went to some of these bigger labels and tried to submit their music, but they were just overlooked because they only have 75 to 200 followers on Instagram. Labels these days are looking less at talent, and more someone who can bring an audience with them.”
The album name “Gasoline and Purple Weed” stems from a lyric in the single “The Road is Callin’:’” “Gasoline and purple weed, been staying lit to help me get away.”
“After the military, you try and find ways to help you kind of cope, sleep and help with other military-related issues,” Marty Coolidge said. “Weed definitely helped with that.”
He joined the Navy in 2001, and was assigned as radio support in Baghdad in 2005.
“I’ve always had that writer’s mentality,” he said. “I was always writing something, even in Baghdad about my experience there.”
His first single “The Road is Callin’’” is about leaving Homer to pursue his music career, he said. He comes back occasionally to see family in the area.
“Once I got to the half a million stream mark on Spotify, it was a little bit of validation that I really needed to be honest in order to keep going,” he said. His stage name Banner Johnson is a character that he writes as, who is a bit more straightforward than him.
His music is mostly country and folk, with undertones of blues, jazz and bluegrass, Cameron Coolidge said. His singles have been played on international radio stations, including the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden and Canada.
A song on the album “Health Camp Road” talks about the good times he had at his friend’s house on Health Camp Road in Homer. The first song on the album, “Old Friend,” describes the desire to check in with his hometown.
“It’s looking at your hometown and almost personifying it,” Cameron Coolidge said. “It’s saying ‘hey old friend, how you been?’ and looking back to the good old days in Homer where we didn’t have anything to worry about, and really getting homesick for those times. We may have left Homer, but Homer has never left us, because everywhere we have settled has that same hometown feel.”
The county they live in is mostly farm land, and reminds them a lot of Cortland County, he added.
“I’ve had stupid thoughts daily of ‘am I even a good singer?’ ‘Am I really going to do this?’ ‘Are people going to like what I put out there?’” Marty Coolidge said. “There’s probably 20 days out of every month where I want to quit, but I finally realized I’m writing for myself. My songs are about my experiences, and some of them may be just stories, but I think it’s time for country music to have a little bit of soul in it.”
