Kyle Crownover: Tour Manager, Emerging Singer-Songwriter, and Dog Advocate

Kyle Crownover has served as Tyler Childers’ tour manager since 2017, guiding the act from small bars to arena-size venues and expanding a single-bus operation into a fleet of tour buses and semitrailers. While overseeing one of country music’s most dynamic live shows, Crownover also writes and records his own material, using the shift between “work brain” and “creative brain” as a deliberate reset.

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In November 2023 Crownover issued the single “The Flame,” co-written with Parker Millsap, a stripped-down folk-blues track that builds to an electric rock crescendo. He followed with “Good News” in January 2024, a collaboration with college classmate Zach Russell that satirizes modern evangelical rhetoric. Earlier attempts at a publishing deal in Nashville yielded an EP titled *Greatest Hits, Vol.*, which Crownover describes as his first four songs written “outside of that frame of mind,” featuring more indie-rock and folk influences than mainstream country.

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The Country Music Association named Childers’ crew a finalist for Crew of the Year and Crownover a finalist for Tour Manager of the Year in early June 2024. During Childers’ ongoing Snipe Hunter Tour, Crownover will open a show for keyboardist Kory Caudill at Denver’s Christ Church, part of a “Concert for the Human Family” that also features jazz vocalist Imani-Grace Cooper.

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A rescue puppy named Cheryl was adopted by Crownover after a shelter visit in Chicago 2024. The crew routinely brings shelter dogs on tour for playtime, a practice Crownover says has “changed my life” and increased his social interaction. Cheryl’s own Instagram documents regular play dates with other crew-adopted pups.

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• “Going from work brain to creative brain can take a long time,” — Kyle Crownover

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• “We were just talking about our phones and feeling like they were sucking the life out of us, and we ran with that,” — Kyle Crownover

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• “We were laughing at how the modern evangelical movement talks about good news, but it’s the worst news imaginable,” — Kyle Crownover

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• “I don’t think, on paper, that I’m the best tour manager,” — Kyle Crownover

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• “I am the luckiest tour manager alive to get to travel around with a team and band of this caliber,” — Kyle Crownover

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• “The amount of positive interactions that I would never have with people — every time I step outside now, it’s smiling and talking to a stranger who’s asking about her,” — Kyle Crownover

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