Allen Stone understands the art of the groove. His songs are irresistible creations of melody and rhythm that make it difficult to listen to without moving along with them. And like the great soul artists of the ‘60s and ‘70s who inspired him growing up, Stone understands how to invest his tracks with some kind of emotional truth.

For his latest tour, “My Favorite Songs, My Favorite Stories,” Stone is leaving behind all but two members of his band and playing a series of intimate concerts across the nation, highlighting the true stories and emotions buried just beneath the grooves. We caught up with Stone before the tour began to discuss both the broad and the personal, touching upon everything from religion to music industry politics.

Here are 10 things you should know about Allen Stone.

He’s Been Performing Since He Was a Toddler

Stone’s father was a minister in his rural hometown of Chewelah in eastern Washington, so much of his childhood was spent in church. He started singing in the choir when he was “around two or three years old,” and hasn’t really stopped performing since. When he was 14, he taught himself a few chords on the guitar. “I started picking and grinning for all the local hotties,” he recalls. “I just felt comfortable in front of people, and making folks laugh.”

His Hometown Gave Him the “Foolish Pride” He Needed to Perform Music

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a town of only 2,600 people, Chewelah didn’t offer a lot of culture for kids like Stone. He grew up wanting to get out. “It’s a beautiful community, but there’s so much more to the world than Bob Hope movies.”

Despite the boredom and longing that came with small-town life, the insulated environment of Chewelah may have been instrumental in pushing him to pursue music as a career. “I think growing up in a small community made people praise what I did, simply because there wasn’t a lot of people doing it,” Stone speculates. “It definitely gave me a level of foolish pride that made me go out and think that I could pull off making a living as a musician.” 

He’s Always Been Fascinated by Rhythm

“I discovered soul music and R&B when I was 16 or 17 years old, and I just fell in love with it,” he says. Only after he familiarized himself with the greats of the ‘60s and ‘70s did Stone realize how their music had influenced the bands he had been listening to since the third grade — namely, alternative rock acts like Cake and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“I remember it was their drums and the bass,” he says. “The rhythm section was so tight in both those bands, so I could suddenly hear the roots of that music in all this old funk and soul.”

He Left Behind His Faith When He First Started Touring

Stone enrolled in Bible College after graduating high school but dropped out, not simply to pursue his music career but also because he had lost faith in the world of organized religion. He explains: “I couldn’t muster a belief in corporate religion anymore. Not that it’s all bad by any means, but I believe people aren’t open enough to understand and respect everyone’s path and beliefs about this crazy rock spinning through space that we’re all on. In order for me to be a part of this community, I have to agree that every other perception of the world and spirituality is completely off-base, and I just can’t do that.”

He Learned to Perform at Any and Every Venue He Could

Shortly after Bible College, Stone hit the road in an old Toyota Corolla, travelling across the nation and opening for a friend who was the one who actually booked each show. “I’ve played so many weird shows trying to make a living doing it,” he laughs. “You know, making no money and playing to eight kids a day who are all eating lunch.”

Some of his favorite experiences during this period were playing nursing homes. “When a kid comes to visit the elderly, it’s a really beautiful thing, especially in nursing homes and especially singing songs and music. Even if they don’t even know the songs, they light up.”

Despite His Success, He’s Still Trying to Figure Out His Place in the Music Industry

Though he’s appeared on multiple talk shows and seen his self-titled LP climb to the top of several separate album charts, Stone says he’s still learning every day about the bizarre mechanics of the music industry, partly because he entered the business just as the age of digital marketing was rendering traditional record deals obsolete.

At this point, he’s mostly worried about longevity. “There’s a level you need to get to if you want to become a band that plays for 25 years,” he says. “That level is still just as hard to reach as it ever was.”

He Wanted To Do Something Differently For His Last Album ‘Radius’

While most of his songwriting is driven by emotion and what people will connect with, Stone’s most recent LP is partially a rebuttal to the wearisome state of modern pop music as he sees it. “Every once in a while a great song comes out and gets popular, but it’s usually like a needle in a haystack amongst all this stuff that sounds the same.

“I wanted to make a record that had pop elements, but I didn’t want people to feel like they’d heard it before, like ‘cool, he did a record like Daft Punk.’ I really wanted to make a record that sounds like nothing else at the time.”

He Loves Performing as a Full Band, Even When It Makes Things Difficult

Stone lays out more of his reservations about contemporary pop music on the Radius track “Fake Future,” about “how technology’s infiltrating music in a way that’s making it less and less human.” It seems Stone prides himself on doing things analog, performing shows with his full six-piece band and bringing — pardon the pun — the soul back to modern music. But that isn’t as simple as it sounds.

“DJs can go play a show for five grand and kill it,” he says. “They just bring a laptop and USB stick and they’re good to go, whereas I’ve got six people onstage, a bus driver and two crew, so five grand a show won’t cut it for me. I’m losing money on that.”

He Doesn’t “Over-Sing,” Because He Wants You to Sing, Too

Stone croons and wails through every one of his songs like his life depends on it, but unlike many soul vocalists of note, he doesn’t particularly like to improvise vocal flourishes or stray from the melody while performing live.

“When I go to a show and I know the songs, I want to sing them with the band, the way I heard them first,” he says. “There’s elements in our shows where we mix the songs up, but I think the biggest joy of shows is experiencing the songs you love in a live context but still being able to sing along.”

This Tour Takes Him Back to What He Loves About Performing

“I’ve always kind of been a performer,” Stone says. “I really like to be in front of a group of people and cultivate an emotion collectively amongst that body of people.”

After averaging nearly 200 shows each year with his full-band, Stone was ready to return to his old way of performing. “I wanted to mix it up and bring an element of music and song and artistry to my audience that they don’t get to see very often. It’ll be more like they’re in my living room rather than coming to a big-band funk show.”