The Relentless Drive of Nick Chandler and Delivered

There’s a moment that tells you everything you need to know about Nick Chandler. It’s not on a record, though the band’s latest single “I Don’t Wanna Be Me Anymore” lays it out in honest, gut-level detail. It’s not on a stage, though they’ve played just about everyone worth mentioning. It’s in rehearsal—after two weeks off the road, Chandler has his band in a room, practicing six to eight hours a day.

“We rehearse like a professional baseball team,” Chandler says, matter-of-factly. “They don’t get together right before the game and take batting practice. That’s how we do it, too.”

There’s no flash in Nick Chandler’s voice when he says that. Just clarity. Purpose. And maybe a little mountain-raised stubbornness, the kind that keeps a guy recording songs live off the floor, even if it means editing out the sound of someone’s chair creaking or a strap shifting at the wrong time. Chandler is the real deal, and his band—Delivered—is as focused and finely tuned as the mandolin he picked up when he was nine years old in Western North Carolina.

Chandler got a late start by local standards—he was nine, “which sounds funny around here,” he says. “Most kids are playing by five, six, or seven years old.” Drawn to the mandolin’s look and sound, Chandler dove in with “Little Liza Jane” and “Down Yonder,” and he was on his way. His playing today blends influences that zigzag through fiddle tunes, Jesse McReynolds’ pickin’, Paul Williams’ tone, and even Ricky Skaggs’ bright, '80s production clarity.

“You can take any kind of song and make it sound traditional if you play it like yourself,” he says. “I don’t try to play like anybody else. I play what I hear—and what I know I can do.”

That ethos—doing what he knows, doing it well—runs through the band’s catalog. It’s a kind of authenticity you can’t fake, and Chandler doesn’t try to. When he says he won’t play a song that doesn’t get a reaction on stage, he means it.

“I’ve played songs I loved, and the crowd didn’t react,” he says. “And when that happens, that’s it, it’s gone. It’s about the audience.”

Chandler’s latest material carries the lived-in weight of a man who's seen a few things—and learned to listen hard. Take “I Don’t Wanna Be Me Anymore,” a David Stewart-penned track Chandler was handed after spending time at Stewart’s songwriting camp in Wyoming. “That was a really good idea for a song,” Chandler says. “I thought it lent itself to how people think—like, ‘Here I am, I’ve been a jerk, I’ve not been the nicest guy… I don’t wanna be that guy anymore.’”

It’s that lyric-driven connection Chandler searches for. If he can’t feel it, he won’t play it. “I’m a lyric guy. I’ve written songs I think are pretty good, but if they don’t fit my style, I don’t do ‘em,” he says. “That’s where a lot of younger musicians miss out.”

Another standout, “Never Did No Wanderin’,” might raise eyebrows—yes, it’s that song from Christopher Guest’s folk music sendup film A Mighty Wind. But Chandler heard something different in it, something with bluegrass bones just waiting for the right arrangement. “Old Devil’s Dream” is another case study in Chandler’s approach: find something old, make it yours, but keep it honest. Initially recorded by the Nashville Bluegrass Band in the mid-80s, Chandler worked a year to make it feel different—authentic to Delivered, because it was relatable. “That’s what makes a song work. You’ve got this guy who used to cat around, and then he finds a woman who changes him. But she’s gone, and he’s stuck. That’s real.”

He lights up when talking about “Slowly Getting You Out of the Way,” a Randall Hilton-penned track that feels tailor-made for him.

“I didn’t even realize how many of his songs I’d done,” Chandler says, laughing. “But they’re all written like they were written for me.”

Chandler’s humility extends to his band, whom he praises for their talent and work ethic. “I’m so happy with the band I have right now,” he says. “Gary Trivette on bass, Spencer Atkinson on guitar, and Jake Burrows on banjo—they work hard. We don’t go more than two weeks without rehearsing, even if we’re not gigging.” But there’s a method to his madness. Chandler still tracks his albums live—no building from rhythm tracks, no stacking solos later.

“We go in, play it two or three times, and whichever one feels best—that’s the one,” he says. And another note here is that the band's on-stage faithfulness to the sound is no accident. “We rehearse with our sound system. That’s the setup we use on the road. It’s a pain, but it’s how we deliver the show we’re supposed to.”

The name Delivered didn’t come from a spiritual epiphany, though Chandler has played plenty of gospel in his day. It came from the need to differentiate his group from solo acts using backing tracks. But it stuck, and now it carries its own weight.

“I couldn’t imagine calling myself Nick Chandler and the Smoky Mountains or something,” he says. “But Delivered? That sounded right.”

There’s something telling about that choice. Chandler doesn’t just want to play bluegrass. He wants to deliver it. With intention. With grit. With polish that comes not from ego, but from care. “We’re not singers who can play. We’re instrumentalists who can sing,” Chandler says. “But we work hard to get that harmony right. We sing a lot of harmony—probably five or ten times more than most.”

Nick Chandler and Delivered have a new album coming. It doesn’t have a name yet. It’s not finished. Floods delayed the studio in Asheville, and Chandler’s picky about arrangements. “Everything we’ve released from it is out there to download,” he says, “but we’re still working on the rest.”

What’s guaranteed is that whatever the final product is, it will be deliberate. Polished, but not polished over. Rooted, but still searching. A clear extension of a band that knows exactly what it’s doing—and is still trying to do it better.

“There’s only one thing I tell young musicians,” Chandler says. “Consistency. That’s what makes people come back.”