Kevin Powers Makes His West Coast Move, Shaboozey Joins for the Ride

Country music has always loved a good heartbreak story—the guy left behind while his girl chases dreams in the city. George Jones&Tammy Wynette did it. Randy Travis did it. Morgan Wallen did it. Now newcomer Kevin Powers is putting his own stamp on the narrative with“Move On,”a collaboration with Shaboozey that landed on country radio in March and is already climbing the Billboard Country Airplay chart.

What makes Powers’take fresh is the journey it took to get there—one that mirrors the very separation story the song tells. The track started in Nashville in June 2025 when Powers, Alex Cabrera, and David Ray gathered at Serg Sanchez’s home for a writing session. They hunted for an idea for three hours before Powers landed on“Who taught you how to move on,”a line loaded with rejection and longing. Ray remembers the moment clearly:“The title really hit me. I thought it was just such a cool, relatable concept for a song.”

The chorus came together quickly, complete with a descending melody and a winding B-section designed to keep listeners engaged. The opening verse—which captures the woman’s West Coast move and the guy’s resulting depression—fell into place in roughly eight minutes. Then came the smart decision to let it marinate. As Ray put it,“You don’t just throw anything in the background of a Mona Lisa.”They broke, let the song breathe, and Powers eventually packed it up and headed to California.

That’s where the magic really happened. At Sean Cook’s studio, Powers brought the track back, and Cook immediately saw potential in the hook—but something wasn’t quite right with the underlying chords. A producer and collaborator named Jake Torrey offered a simpler four-chord pattern that shifted the vibe from jazzy to California country-rock, then stepped out. When Shaboozey arrived to check on Cook’s work, he heard what they’d built and decided to jump in. He freestyled the second verse—the one where the guy’s sleeping on a mattress cold as the woman who left him—in roughly 30 minutes, working line by line until the words landed naturally.“That’s usually how the best records get made,”Shaboozey reflects.

Powers developed an unusual bridge melody that dips lower than expected before rising like it’s peeking over a horizon, asking“Who do you see when you close your eyes?”It’s his favorite part of the song, and the team had to talk him out of second-guessing it. The final production layered in gang vocals and a rhythm section inspired by the Mick Fleetwood-style drums of“Dreams”by Fleetwood Mac, creating a contrast that Whit Kane nails perfectly:“The contrast of a timeless song is either you got a really sad track and somebody saying something really happy, or you got a really happy track and somebody saying something pretty depressing.”

Shaboozey signed Powers to his American Dogwood label, which released“Move On”in September 2025 alongside Empire. It hit country radio officially on March 31, and by May 9—just three weeks in—it was sitting at No. 49 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. For Shaboozey, the investment was simple: Powers has“an undeniable tone to him—real edge in the way he comes across sonically, something you don’t hear every day.”A guy with that kind of talent deserved to be the first artist on the label. Sometimes the best songs happen when you let them breathe, when you’re willing to make a move, and when the right people believe in what you’re building.