Av Freeman almost can’t believe his life right now.
The 27-year-old from Pierce City, Missouri, has spent the last several months playing sold-out shows under the stage name honestav, and on Saturday, he will take the stage right before headliner Tech N9ne at the annual Boulevardia festival in Kansas City.
“I’m telling you, I’m literally shaking right now,” Freeman laughed on KCUR’s Up To Date. “I’m nervous, but can’t wait.”
Growing up as the youngest of eight siblings meant Freeman listened to an eclectic hodgepodge of music as a kid, including punk rock, hip hop and country.
“I might be listening to The Strokes upstairs, and then I come downstairs and my sister's listening to Natasha Bedingfield or something,” he said. “And, you know, then my mom's playing Prince.”
But life in rural southwest Missouri wasn’t always easy for Freeman.
“I grew up in a more violent household, and my parents struggled with drug abuse and things like that, and everybody in the town knew,” he shared.
Freeman felt bitter about being labeled as “a bad kid” early on. But he said that shaped him into the compassionate, creative man he is today.
“I just think I never want to be like those people that wrote my parents off because they had, you know, struggles,” he said.
Freeman was just 12 years old when he wrote his first song, but it was the 2024 hit “I’d Rather Overdose” that launched Freeman into the national spotlight.
The song was made within hours of discovering his dad had taken his own life.
“I just wrote it from, you know, from my heart. And, yeah, it changed my life forever. Man, I'm so grateful for that song,” he remarked.
Head to any one of honestav’s videos on YouTube and you’ll find hundreds of comments from people sharing their own struggles with addiction and loss. Some people share the date their loved one passed away from an overdose.
Others share the days, weeks, months and years they’ve been sober, and say that honestav is what’s getting them through. “He is healing multiple generations with one song,” wrote one YouTube commenter.
“The music is just, you know, it helps us cope. And I love music that makes me feel things too,” Freeman said. “But you know, these people are, they've got it in themselves already to make the change that they want to make.”
honestav released his debut album, "hara-kiri," last year — and a deluxe edition came out in May. As far as what comes next, Freeman just wants people to continue listening, and to really hear and see him for who he is.
“I just want to be, you know, that guy for the underdogs, that says, ‘Look bro, like we can do this thing too,'” he said. “So I want to take it as far as I can take it, and just take my people with me — and make my mama proud.”
- honestav, musician from southwest Missouri
