Adam Melchor

Singer and songwriter Adam Melchor first made a name for himself recording lullabies, but he’s less interested in putting children to sleep than building an audience for his laid-back but emphatic indie pop. Melchor’s music is built around primarily acoustic arrangements and easygoing melodies, while its dreamlike tone is reinforced by his gentle tenor vocals. Low-key arrangements and straightforward production dominated the presentation on 2017′s The Archer EP. His debut album, 2021′s Melchor Lullaby Hotline, Vol. 1, featured songs from his weekly home-recording series as well as a more sophisticated and adventurous sound. He followed it the next year with the even more diverse Here Goes Nothing!
Adam Melchor was born in New Jersey on May 18, 1992. He grew up in a household of music lovers (there were several music teachers in his family), and he was a section leader of the choir at the church he attended in the Garden State’s Bergen County. After completing high school, Melchor attended college, where he studied classical vocals. When he wasn’t busy with academics, he worked on his own original songs, and made it a greater priority after he got his degree, moving to Brooklyn and forming a band. He wrote new songs day and night, and regularly played bars and restaurants, hoping someone would take notice. After several months of making no progress, his group relocated to Nashville, while he stayed in New York. In time, Melchor drove out to Los Angeles, certain there was a more appreciative audience on the West Coast. A producer heard a demo of his songs and approached him about collaborating with another tunesmith, giving Melchor his first break.
In 2017, he made his official debut with the song “Brook Revisited,” a warmly personal acoustic number that earned him positive reviews. It was followed later that year by a five-track EP, The Archer, and a steady stream of individual tracks — among them the streaming hits “Real Estate,” “Joyride,” and “I Choose You” — before he treated fans to another EP, the four-song Plan on You, in 2019. Melchor devoted much of his time to live work that year, including a tour with British vocalist Dodie Clark and another that took him to the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Melchor began a project he called the Lullaby Hotline, in which fans who texted him would get a weekly home recording, featuring both originals and covers with a soothing and laid-back vibe. The growing popularity of the Lullaby Hotline attracted the attention of Warner Records, which signed him in February 2021.
Melchor’s major-label debut, the album Melchor Lullaby Hotline, Vol. 1, arrived in March 2021. Additional singles like “What a Damn Shame” and “Love Flew Away” appeared later in the year as he prepared his follow-up. Released in 2022, Here Goes Nothing! expressed an even wider stylistic and tonal range and featured “Let Me Know When,” a collaboration with Fleet Foxes. ~ Mark Deming