CMT Blog: William Snyder

Will Snyder is one of the finalists in CMT's Can You Duet competition.

Can You Duet has been a life changing event for me. My cousin Belvis Morgan and I song write together, were two solo artists that work on each other's music to improve our songs. Belvis heard about Can You Duet over the internet, well we had been driving to Nashville to NSAI for songwriter meetings and pitch to publisher night. Belvis brought up that he had found out about Can You Duet online earlier that day, so on our trip to Nashville we decided that we would enter as a duo. Technically we've never been a duo, but we do have a 5 year history of playing together at local clubs, and charity events. Every time that I would get a gig, I would have Belvis come and play a few of his songs with me, and he did the same for me when he got gigs. So we thought that it would be really cool to try our music as a duo, and see what would happen.

At the first audition we played a song that we had co-wrote together with a good friend of ours "Joe Asher." It was a song that we thought would show us well as a duo, and also showcase our songwriter skills. By the time that we had walked in to play for the judges, we had gotten pretty nervous. I've played for 300 people and not been as nervous lol, But after you wait in line for so long, and you see other people walking out crying, and on top of that... we didn't know who the judges was going to be, it really started eating at us. When we walked in and started playing, I felt a little more at ease. The judges were really tough that day, as soon as they told us to stop... I couldn't tell by the looks on their faces what they were thinking. I remember looking over at Brett and feeling a connection, and something told me he was interested in my sound. When Naomi started talking about our performance, I realized that we might not be making it past round one. I just stood there and took it all in, and right in the middle of the judges talking, the camera man said that they had just ran out of film and they had to put a new tape in. It took them about 5 minutes to get a new tape, I looked over at Belvis and thought why are we even standing here still, as soon as they put a new tape in, the judges are just going to send us home. But, then it hit me... They are going to send me home and keep Belvis because I have more of a rock vocal. So I stood and waited because I didn't want to do something stupid to mess up what chance we still had. When the camera man started filming again, Brett went on to say that he was having a hard time dealing with the thought of splitting Belvis and I up because we are family. But Belvis and I had a talk earlier, that if they didn't take me, I wanted him to go on and go as far as he could, and he told me the same. I truly thought Belvis would have a better chance than me because he's got 20 years of playing over me, plus he is a great country singer. When all three Judges said that they wanted me, I think that's that closest I've ever been to passing out. I was so happy to make it, but I was all tore up for the next few days because of Belvis getting sent home. I really wish that if they were going to split us up, that they would have teamed him up with another person and gave him a second chance to prove himself. As soon we walked off camera I broke down and started crying, I gave Belvis a big hug and asked him if he was alright. I didn't realize that as soon as we stepped out from the judges we were going to do 1000 interviews. I felt bad for Belvis cause he couldn't get away from the cameras, everyone kept asking him how he felt and what went on in the room with the judges. In the meanwhile, I was getting mobbed by cameras too, and honestly... after all that had happened, you really don't feel like answering a ton of questions about it. It was hard enough going through it once, but they kept bringing it up in every interview. I can only imagine how bad Belvis felt, It was hard on me... and I was the one who made it. But, we both knew that's what you have to go through to make a show, they just wanted to make sure they had the right amount of footage to cover the event. After all, we were the first duo to be split. After we left the Wildhorse, Belvis had another talk with me. He told me to go a win it if I could, and I knew he was hurt really bad. That had to be one of the hardest things I went through in the whole contest. I felt very alone after he went back home to Kentucky.