Jordan Fletcher Explains How a Pandemic, a Pregnancy and Plenty of Reflection Led to 'Death and Taxes'

Jordan Fletcher can still remember everything about his dad.

"He was a serious man," the rising country music star, 28, remembers of his late father in a recent interview with PEOPLE. "He had a thick Southern accent and big reading glasses. He was a pharmacist, and he was the guy in our town that took care of everybody. He was 6'3" and he had a big laugh, and he was awesome."

But just as Fletcher was truly getting to know the man his father was, he lost him to lung cancer. Fletcher was just 11 years old at the time of his father's death.

And in 2020, as the world began to cave in, Fletcher found himself dealing with not only the leftover pain of losing his father so young, but also a surging pandemic and his wife Kelly's pregnancy.

Jeff Ray Jordan Fletcher

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"The Covid shutdown happened and then we found out my wife was pregnant with our son," remembers Fletcher quietly. "Because of COVID-19 restrictions, it wasn't until Kelly was eight months pregnant that I got to actually see our son's image at an ultrasound appointment," he pauses. "I just remember seeing his face and being like, 'Holy smokes, that's me.'"

And in the hours after that ultrasound, Fletcher's whole outlook changed.

"Suddenly, I started thinking about what if something ever happened to me," recalls Fletcher. "I wanted my son to know who I was. So, I started putting all of these little pieces of advice and lessons into a Dropbox link, but it ended up being so much more."

In fact, those little pieces of insight eventually became Fletcher's debut radio single "Death and Taxes," the follow up to his critically acclaimed, Dave Cobb-produced debut EP True Stories, released earlier this year via Triple Tigers Records.

"The song is about advice that my dad gave that I want to give to my son," says Fletcher of the song he wrote alongside Randy Montana and Chris LaTorte and a song whose lyrics essentially serve up his own handbook for life. "It was cathartic. We were sitting there remembering all this advice you get when you're a kid."

Jeff Ray Jordan Fletcher

But it wasn't all serious in the writing room.

"There were times that we were laughing our asses off because sometimes, it was really bad advice that my dad gave," Fletcher recalls with a grin. "But whether it was good or bad, it was that advice that made me who I am."

Certainly, thus far in his young career, Fletcher has found success in letting his soul live within the autobiographical songs he has been releasing, with songs such as "Firebird" and "Rather Be Broke" particularly resonating with listeners.

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"So many of the songs that I have written were originally for me and for my family and to be honest, I didn't expect anyone else to necessarily gravitate to it because why would they? They aren't their stories," explains Fletcher, who made his Grand Ole Opry debut earlier this year. "But I keep on hearing how people are injecting their truths into these songs, and because of that, they are relating to it."

Even now, as the months have passed since the writing of "Death and Taxes" and Fletcher has watched his son Maverick get a little older, the singer/songwriter has realized that there is more advice that he needs to share with his now-18-month-old that didn't quite make it into the song in time.

"I think the advice I would give him is not actually in the song right now," admits Fletcher. "I guess that's because it's something that has really been weighing heavily on me recently. It's just about being easy on people. Just give everybody some grace because everybody, in most cases, are trying as hard as they can."

He pauses.

"That's probably what I will tell him."