Meet Cody Cozz, the country musician from Pueblo making waves in Nashville

Cody Cozzolino played his first gig at an Italian restaurant in Pueblo. Now, he's a rising star in Nashville’s country music scene.

Cozzolino — who is known on stage as Cody Cozz — was raised in Pueblo but moved to the Nashville area a year and a half ago to build his career in music.

Cozzolino recently sat down with the Chieftain to talk about how he got into performing music, what his career has been like so far and what’s in store for the future.

Making music is a family tradition for Cozzolino

Cozzolino grew up surrounded by music in his family. Both his dad and his uncle played in bands while he was a growing up.

His grandma also sang before Cozzolino was born. She still has a record on a vinyl single.

He sang along to 1950s music from Black artists such as Ray Charles and Otis Redding on the radio, as well as the “big hair bands” of the 1980s. Cozzolino said that both the African-American singers in the ‘50s and classic rock artists of the ‘80s are the “best vocalists of our time.”

“I think growing up with those influences and learning to sing to the radio of those guys, trying to copy what they did, made me a good singer, truthfully,” Cozzolino said. “I didn't know that it was doing that, but it just trained my voice to do what they do.”

Cozzolino didn’t just sing along with the radio — he sometimes sang with his family’s bands and played Mr. Scrooge in a production of "A Christmas Carol" in fifth grade.

“Getting in front of all of those eyes, the pressure and feeling judged is intimidating, but eventually you just let it go,” Cozzolino said.

From an Italian restaurant to much larger venues

Cozzolino played football at Pueblo West High School and graduated in 2017. He also played football for Colorado State University Pueblo, where he studied construction management.

He got a guitar when he was in high school and wrote his first song — “Sunflower Girl” — for his girlfriend at the time.

Cozzolino recalled that he felt uncomfortable sharing his music with others at first because people knew him as a football player.

“There's a stigma of breaking out of your comfort zone. … I can't tell you how many young kids have come up to me from doing this and they're like, ‘You've inspired me to kind of do music and whatever.’ Music has changed my complete life, so I'm the biggest advocate for doing that,” Cozzolino said.

His career started taking off when he was at a low point in his life during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Online school was “awful” and his college football career was over.

He also got dumped by the girlfriend he wrote his first song for.

The breakup inspired the first song he posted to YouTube, “Beautiful Lies,” which he wrote in his bedroom.

“It was like my therapy, I was just expressing my feelings,” Cozzolino said. “I ended up playing it a couple times and every time I would play it, somebody would come up to me and be like, ‘I relate to that song like crazy.’

“It made me realize that I'm helping other people process things and that was why I like songwriting. That, to me, was really, really special because it meant a lot to me, that other people liked it, that they were taking something from it too, in their own way. Because eventually, you heal from those things. And like, those moments don't really matter for you anymore. But the song lives forever and that feeling stays forever.”

Cozzolino started going as “Cody Cozz” after an announcer mispronounced his last name at a larger show. He considered using his middle name and going as “Cody Joseph” but he was already used to the “Cozz” nickname from school.

How a pivotal conversation with Craig Campbell changed his life

At Cozzolino’s first shows, mostly at restaurants and entertainment venues in Pueblo during summer 2020, he played covers and sat down while performing.

“I used to read out of a binder, I was so disengaged from the crowd,” Cozzolino recalled. “And I was okay with that because I also wasn't pursuing it in any other way than just, you know, elevator music.”

Cozzolino opened for country musician Craig Campbell at Bumperz (now known as Copper River) in Pueblo West on Oct. 3, 2020. He had started standing while performing by that point but still had a binder in front of him — and wasn’t performing original songs.

Cozzolino recalled that he approached Campbell after the concert and asked him for a 20-minute conversation to talk with him. Campbell gave Cozzolino his number and they ended up speaking on the phone for hours a few days later.

“By far one of the best surprises I’ve ever had was to open for the one and only (Craig Campbell),” Cozzolino wrote on Instagram a few days after the show. “Thank you for the advice and so much more as I move into the industry. I’m looking forward to the future as it comes and can’t wait to do some things with you soon.”

Campbell, who has had eight singles on the country charts, continues to be a mentor for Cozzolino, as well as a collaborator.

After that October gig opening for Campbell, Cozzolino realized he wanted to pursue music full-time. He still worked his job in construction for the next few months and finished his degree in construction management from Colorado State University Pueblo.

Cozzolino moved to the Nashville area in the winter of 2021-22. He plays shows regularly in Tennessee, Colorado and around the country.

Why Cozzolino enjoys country music

After his voice changed during puberty, Cozzolino said he didn’t feel comfortable singing with his new voice for years. But that’s around the same time that he started taking more of an interest in country music.

“It was a little late in the game for me, but I really enjoyed what was out there at the time, which was like Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood in her early days,” Cozzolino recalled.

Country music singers can encapsulate life’s stories and feelings, Cozzolino said, and country songs are able to capture powerful feelings from moments such as falling in love, getting dumped or sitting around a campfire with friends.

That’s the point of one of his latest releases, “I’m just a country song,” written by Campbell as well as Jason Matthews and Jim McCormick.

“We can all have a pinpoint moment in our life that we listen to a song and it takes us back to a place —  it's just an amazing feeling. Whether it's good or bad, it doesn't matter,” Cozzolino said.

The role social media has played in Cozzolino's career

Cozzolino owes some of his initial success to spreading the word on social media. He booked his first gig in June 2020 after a video spread that he'd posted to Instagram singing a Luke Combs song. He's since amassed fans from around the country.

While social media helps some singers go viral and swiftly secure record deals, Cozzolino said some other up-and-coming artists aren’t adequately prepared to go big so fast. People in the audience also want to capture the viral snippet of a song themselves, to share on their own social media channels, and that puts a lot of pressure on singers who may be accustomed to recording music in their bedrooms.

Cozzolino is still active on social media — he has over 13,200 followers on Instagram, 7,300 on Facebook and 11,400 on TikTok as of early August — but he said he’s learned in conversations with seasoned artists that he needs to get out there and play shows. And that’s what Cozzolino enjoys.

“I think that the in current state of our music business, people are building their foundation (in an inverted pyramid)— it's really fragile,” Cozzolino said. “The other way, the old school way, why these guys have sustained for decades and they still sell out stadiums when they're 80, is because they did the old school way of going and playing anywhere that would have them.”

Cozzolino says he’s been lucky in life, but he’s also put in a lot of work to get himself to this point.

“I've spent years trying to make myself ready and prepped for playing shows — opening for big names that are pros — and really becoming a professional. And that's a lot of work,” Cozzolino said. “Like, you don't realize how cringey and awkward it can be to entertain a crowd and it takes a lot of mental breakthroughs to cross those boundaries with yourself.”

Cozzolino said he receives “dozens” of direct messages on social media every day, too many to respond to each one. Many of the messages are from young women trying to hit on him, which he said can be flattering but overwhelming.

“I've said I feel like a girl sometimes, where the compliments have gotten old, you know … It’s a weird thing,” Cozzolino said.

But his favorite type of message to receive is from young people (or their parents) singing, sometimes to his music.

One recent video sent to Cozzolino features a young child in a Spiderman getup strumming along on a guitar — he hadn’t learned any chords yet, but it was cute — as one of Cozzolino’s songs played in the background. The young boy sang along to Cozzolino’s music with a smile on his face.

“It's things like that, they keep you going,” Cozzolino said. “I mean, there's a lot that keeps you going, but it's just hard to explain. It's just one of the coolest feelings in the world to be able to do what we're doing.”

Cody Cozz’s upcoming concerts in Pueblo include an appearance at the Pueblo Ice Arena on Saturday, Aug. 5, and opening for Travis Tritt at Pueblo Memorial Hall on Thursday, Sept. 21.

Anna Lynn Winfrey is a reporter at the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com or on Twitter, @annalynnfrey. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Meet Cody Cozz, the musician from Pueblo making waves in Nashville