Spencer Crandall Gets Real About the Dark Times of His Life: 'I Hated Who I Had Become'

Nina Long. Spencer Crandall

Spencer Crandall can remember it like it was yesterday

It was October of 2016, and the budding music artist had snagged a spot opening for country music hitmaker Chris Lane in Denver. But as he stood on the side of the stage waiting for his name to be announced, Crandall realized he couldn't move.

He was having an anxiety attack.

"I almost didn't go on," Crandall, 27, tells PEOPLE in a recent interview. "I felt so terrible. It was like I was having an out-of-body experience. It felt so scary. And then you have PTSD about it, where you think it's going to happen every time you go out on stage. Basically, you get nervous about how you are going to be nervous. It's a crazy cycle."

Unfortunately, it's a cycle that Crandall knows all too well. In fact, the Denver native who burst onto the music scene with songs such as "Made," "My Person" and his current single "Didn't Do" never remembers a time when he didn't feel somewhat anxious.

Nina Long. Spencer Crandall

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"I was the kid who, when we were in line to get on the roller coaster, I thought my insides were going to come out," recalls Crandall, whose social numbers have climbed into the millions since breaking onto the country music scene just last year. "I just didn't understand why I was so tense all the time."

Just about three years ago, following a bad breakup and the stress of the ongoing pandemic at the time, the self-proclaimed overthinker made the crucial decision to seek professional help.

"I have certainly been on a journey when it comes to my mental health," admits Crandall, who will embark on his 26-stop headlining The Western Tour this fall. "That's why you go to therapy and that's why I stopped drinking."

Indeed, on top of crippling anxiety, Crandall also admits there were times when he was drinking far too much.

"I drank from [ages] 12 to 22," Crandall remembers. "I just started drinking so early. I had an older brother, and all my friends had an older brother, you know? We were just exposed to everything so young."

Nina Long. Spencer Crandall

Crandall's role as "the life of the party" certainly didn't help.

"I never really understood why people would have just one drink," says Crandall, who found himself drinking daily as he entered his 20s.  "I think alcohol made me its bitch. I had no control over my own life. I couldn't say 'no' anymore. I had no control over the habit."

But on St. Patrick's Day of 2017, everything changed.

"I went out and I drank for the last time," Crandall remembers. "I woke up feeling terrible. I was just crying in my room about how much I hated this feeling. I hated who I had become, not entirely, but just in this area of my life." He pauses. "You feel less depressed when you stop pumping your body full of a depressant."

Crandall is now coming up on six years of sobriety.

"At this same time, I found my passion in music," Crandall says. "I knew that I had to go all in and that meant giving up drinking completely. I couldn't write all day or post videos if I was hungover, you know? I'm trying to become the best version of myself and for me, that includes not drinking."

Opening up about the hidden trials and tribulations experienced by the guy with country music's biggest smile was something Crandall says he felt like he had to do, especially as it was this painful journey that found itself in his new 20-song album Western, which is set for release Oct. 21.

"I could have so easily been like, 'this is too vulnerable' or 'this is too much,'" says Crandall, whose songs such as "K[no]w Better" and "Get Away from Me" touch on his mental health struggles. "But I knew that in order to create a great piece of art, I had to be vulnerable, and it had to let people in and show them my shadows."

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And based on the stories Crandall has heard thus far from his "Stadium Gang" fandom, it's these shadows that the whole world can seemingly relate to.

"When we tell other people what's in our diary, it often matches their diary," says Crandall, who will make his Grand Ole Opry debut on Sept. 16. "Solidarity is the best gift we could ever give each other. It's just as much of their story, my story, and our story as ever before. I want to share the real, most authentic version of who I am and where I am."

But make no mistake — Crandall says he is still a work in progress.

"It's pretty easy for some people to just assume it's easy," he says quietly, who has been going to therapy "off and on" for the past three years. "That's the interesting part of this. It's not like that desire to drink has gone away. And I can still feel that anxiety. I'm just trying to get better, in every way."