Within two weeks, he was #1 in the Reverbnation Folk Charts for Richmond, VA. Within a month of that, he rose to the top ten in the nation. His first music video release was viewed over 1,500 times in the first two days of its launch. With over 10,000 fans across the country and growing, Karl Hepler is gaining traction – and his all before his first major CD release (coming May 2012).
Karl grew up in a small town in rural Virginia – the kind of place that was an hour from everywhere. Instead tooling around a neighborhood, Karl’s childhood was spent playing in the woods and playing music in his father’s recording studio.
Having been (thankfully) forced to play piano for many years at an early age, when he was 11 years old he and his family started going to a yearly old time music workshop in West Virginia called Allegheny Echoes (which he still attends to this day). It was here that he first gained an interest in playing guitar. Since then, he has been taught by some of the best musicians of the genre: Robin Kessinger, Robert Shafer, Mike Bing, Tim Bing, Bobby Taylor, Danny Arthur, and (of course) his father Doug Hepler… to name a few.
Karl has been writing music ever since he started playing the piano. At the age of 9, he had written several short symphonic pieces. Once a teenager, he wrote several songs in the rock genre until he helped form a hard rock band (not unlike TOOL), which he wrote songs with for about five years. Once that band broke up, he spent more time learning old time music and flackpicking until he recently started writing again.
Being a multi-instrumentalist (guitar, clawhammer banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and ukulele), Karl has found a unique style in his writing that blends the music from traditional American old time music with a more modern feel. He is heavily influenced by Elton John, Gillian Welch, The Wailin’ Jennys, Alison Krauss, The Beatles, Solas, and traditional old time and celtic music. Fans of his music have related his music to that of George Harrison, John Denver, James Taylor, and Gram Parsons.
Karl Hepler has come a long way since he started his new musical career in early 2011 and he is sure to continue until folk music and old time music once again become household genres.
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