If you’ve found your way here through one of my videos, welcome, and thank you for taking the time to learn a little more about me. You may know me as the American sharing observations about life in Britain, but those videos are only one part of my story.

Three years ago, I left my hometown of Rockwell, North Carolina, and flew to Britain believing I was beginning a new chapter in my music career. After spending two weeks travelling through parts of Europe with my manager, I returned with her to her family home in Oxfordshire, where I planned to stay for a couple of months.

During those first few weeks, I began getting to know everyone in the house, including my manager’s father, Martyn Stringer. Martyn welcomed me into his home with a kindness, generosity and warmth I will never forget.

At the time, Martyn had been struggling with his mental health. The treatment he received ultimately did not help in the way everyone had hoped, and he experienced a severe mental health crisis. One afternoon, after learning that doctors were coming to the house to take him in for further treatment, he became frightened and overwhelmed. In the middle of the crisis, he locked all of us inside the house and ran from the family home.

Once we managed to get out, we followed after him, but our worst fears became reality. Martyn took his own life on the road leading through the hamlet to the family home. My manager and her sister reached him first, and I arrived moments later. It remains one of the hardest moments of my life to put into words.

In the days that followed, I did the only thing I felt I knew how to do: I wrote a song. I had been thrown into a tragic moment that I was completely unprepared for, and when words alone did not feel like enough, I wanted to try to bring the family some small sense of reassurance and hope. That song became "Hope on the Horizon."

I had arrived in Britain expecting to pursue music and build a career. Instead, within my first few weeks, I experienced something that completely changed my understanding of life, purpose and what success should really mean. Britain became more than the place where I hoped to build a future. It became the place that reshaped the kind of person, and the kind of songwriter, I wanted to become.

Before losing Martyn, I wanted to write songs people would enjoy. Afterwards, I wanted to write songs people could lean on: songs for the moments when life does not make sense, for the conversations we struggle to have and for the feelings we often do not know how to express.

I especially wanted to speak to the men who have spent years believing they are supposed to remain silent, hide their pain and carry everything alone. From that point forward, music was no longer simply about chasing success or recognition. It became the place I turned when life felt too heavy to explain, and a way of helping others feel less alone in whatever they might be carrying.

What happened to Martyn did not become the subject of every song I wrote. In fact, several of the songs on my debut EP, Dreaming of a Memory, had been written before I ever came to Britain. But when I returned to those songs years later and brought them together for this project, I was no longer the same person who had first written them.

The songs came from different chapters of my life, but I heard and understood them differently because of everything I had experienced since. The memories, questions and emotions within them carried a different weight. What happened to Martyn did not create those songs, but it changed what music meant to me and why I felt compelled to revisit and share them.

That is why Dreaming of a Memory is not a retelling of Martyn’s tragedy or an EP centred around one single moment. It is a collection of songs written at different times in my life, brought together by someone whose understanding of loss, hope, purpose and human connection had been permanently changed.

"Hope on the Horizon" holds a separate and deeply personal place within that journey. I wrote it specifically for Martyn and his family when I did not know what else I could offer them. I could not change what had happened or take away their pain, but I hoped the song might bring even a small amount of reassurance and comfort during a time when both felt almost impossible to find.

I do not expect everyone who hears my music to know this story. But I wanted to share it here because it explains why music eventually became far more to me than simply building a career. It became the only way I knew to respond to some of the things life had placed in front of me and, hopefully, a way of helping someone else feel less alone in what they might be carrying.

Thank you for giving your time to read my story. I know everyone carries a story of their own, so it means more to me than I can properly express that you chose to stop and read mine. Whether you found me through one of my videos, through the music or simply by chance, I do not take your time, support or willingness to listen for granted. I am deeply grateful to every person who has allowed these songs to become even a small part of their life.

P.S. I’ve left a link below to "Hope on the Horizon," the song I wrote for Martyn and his family, along with my debut EP, Dreaming of a Memory. It would genuinely mean a great deal to me if you chose to listen.

God Bless.

— Nathan Leazer