From his gig as the sinister Ward Cameron on Netflix’s Outer Banks to comedic spins on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Office, Charles Esten has made a career of high-level pretending.
Yet some could argue that being his true self has brought some of Esten’s biggest success, and that same spirit now powers a remarkable debut album. For those out of the loop, Esten broke out in 2012 with the ABC/CMT drama Nashville, leading a celebrated ensemble as the fictional country star and troubled heartthrob Deacon Claybourne. The multi-talented entertainer went on to prove it wasn’t really an act, setting a Guinness World Record for original country song releases (once a week for 54 straight weeks), garnering 14 million streams and making over 165 Grand Ole Opry appearances in the process.
But in all that time, he’s never had a proper solo album to his credit. Until now. Ten-plus years in the making, his full-length debut Love Ain’t Pretty arrives January 26. Esten says the entire album is steeped in love for an art form—and a town—that have given him so much.
“This is very, very important to me, and I think that’s why it took so long,” he says. “There’s something about an album that I learned growing up with them. It’s not just hearing a single and moving on but spending a little time on a journey from one song to the next. That was so meaningful to me, but the real answer is I take a long time on the things I care about the most, and this is that.”
It’s often said that life imitates art, but in Esten’s case, it’s the other way around.
Growing up in Virginia, his home was filled with country touchstones from legendary tunesmiths like Kris Kristofferson to hitmakers like the Eagles and more. He held down a band in college, and his first real acting gig was playing Buddy Holly in a production on London’s West End, with Esten singing to Queen Elizabeth. (And later at the White House.)
He stayed a country fan through the years, especially in the ’90s while raising his three children. In fact, he was writing songs of his own when he received the first script for Nashville. The role was a natural fit, and once he arrived in the real Nashville, the city immediately became more than a workplace.
“All these pieces of all these puzzles came together and it unlocked a part of me that I had locked away for a while,” he says, explaining that he loved music and performing “desperately,” but assumed he had “missed the boat” on that career path. “Nashville is my promised land. It’s sort of like when I got here, everything was suddenly the way I’d always wanted it to be.”
Writing and performing opportunities poured in as Nashville hit its stride, and for Esten, they kept coming even after the show ended in 2018. He actually scrapped a whole album just after the Covid pandemic hit (it suddenly felt irrelevant, both creatively and personally, he says), and started over with a new batch of songs. That new creative chapter would become Love Ain’t Pretty.
Produced by Marshall Altman (Rob Thomas, Amy Grant), what emerged is a set that actually fits quite comfortably into the boots Esten wore on TV. It’s a gritty-yet-tender mix of modern country-rock, exploring the connective tissue between heart, soul, destiny, and the great beyond. Esten’s striking vocals are capable of reaching the back rows of any theater but also delicate enough to convey intense inner pain, making for a tracklist that, at times, can be moody and dark. But with Esten’s creative dichotomy—and effervescent charm—he also offers up some sunnier songs. Over 14 candid songs co-written with hitmakers like Leslie Satcher, Neil Medley, “Big” Kenny Alphin, and more, Esten takes listeners into a world that, to him, is in no way “make-believe.”
“For me, the journey of the album is the title and the title track, ‘Love Ain’t Pretty,’” he says of the song co-written with Altman and Jimmy Yeary.
“It’s talking about that deeper level to everything,” he says. “When you’re young, love is sweet and cute; it’s Valentine’s candy hearts and little cards like that. Only as you get older and go through life do you realize love comes loss and pain. With love comes these things that’ll bring you to your knees. ‘Pretty’ is too delicate of a word for it, but what you find out is that regardless of all those things happening, [love is] still the greatest thing in the world. There’s a deep, deep beauty to it.”
According to Esten, that theme of complexity is found in different ways throughout the album, and much of it was inspired by his time on Nashville.
“We’re all hurting, whether we’re right in the middle of it, or whether it’s just a shadow that whispers to us sometimes,” he says. “What I found playing Deacon Claybourne is that everybody, every person of a certain age has been through it. That character was a touchstone for so many people, and with everything he went through people came up to me sharing their stories, their pain, their connection to addiction or cancer or the loss of someone they love. It made my music deeper, I think.”
In other songs like “A Little Right Now,” a weary spiritual traveler begs for the faith to carry on, fighting a dark undercurrent with rootsy twang and growing courage. “In a Bar Somewhere” finds a broken-hearted guy letting his mind drift back to better days, enveloped in the hazy warmth of a love that burned hot, and too short. Meanwhile, upbeat tunes like “Make You Happy” get right to the feel-good romantic point, offering a breezy, summery bounce. And with “One Good Move,” a self-proclaimed fool retraces his many missteps (and the single, monumental thing he got right) with an epic swell of jangling guitars, spirit-lifting piano, and soul-shouting vocals.
Esten finishes the set with a one-two punch of wellness, hitting the gas on the inner resilience anthem “Down the Road” (featuring Eric Paslay) and holding fast to belief in the better-place ballad, “Somewhere in the Sunshine.”
It’s a rich tapestry of topics and emotions that take inspiration not only from Esten’s time on TV, but also his philanthropic work. Citing the “culture of kindness and caring in Nashville,” Esten is both a board member of Musicians on Call, which organizes bedside hospital performances, and a National Honorary Spokesperson for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s annual Light the Night Walk, which he has helped raise over $2 million to fight childhood cancer since his now 24-year-old daughter Addie survived Leukemia at the age of two. Esten says that work is similar to his music: Dedicated to the Nashville community, striving to get to the heart of things, and completely authentic.
“What does it mean to me? It means everything,” he says, speaking of his ability to give back and to continue being a part of the Music City story. “And there’s that word ‘mean.’ Does your life have meaning? Do the things you do have meaning? Do your songs have meaning? I find that is the gasoline I run on.”