Musician on fire as performer, songwriter with popular local band
By David Blanchette
Patrick Longmeyer is setting the local country music scene on fire, while his day job is all about tamping down the flames.
Longmeyer, a 13-year member of the Jacksonville Fire Department, is also the namesake of The Longmeyer Band, which has opened for several big-name country music acts and is in high demand at local fairs, festivals and venues.
As long as he can remember, Longmeyer has wanted to perform country music.
“My parents had pictures of me as a three-year-old kid in my cowboy hat with a little fake guitar watching Garth Brooks on TV and just dreaming about being him,” Longmeyer said. “I loved his showmanship, how he delivered songs. And then as I grew older I liked Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings, the Outlaw Movement.”
From those early beginnings, Longmeyer and his band have progressed to recently opening for such artists as Morgan Wallen “before he hit it really big,” and more recently Josh Turner, the Steel Woods, Wade Hayes and Whitey Morgan.
“I’ve been very blessed to be in the company of a lot of these guys,” Longmeyer said. “They’ve been really sweet to us and gave us some good advice and helped to point us in the right direction.”
Success did not come overnight for the 36-year-old Longmeyer. He “started like a lot of folks in the business, singing in church at a young age,” and said his family on both sides was very musically inclined. Longmeyer’s father Marc played in bands as Patrick was growing up and “I was inspired by him and he taught me the first three chords on my guitar,” he said.
Longmeyer took piano lessons as a child but gave up that instrument to concentrate on teaching himself the guitar. Longmeyer listened to and jammed with a number of local musicians as he continued to learn from them and develop his own style, but there was never any doubt which type of music he wanted to perform.
“I grew up listening to ‘90s country music on the radio, there’s just something about that genre that connects with me,” Longmeyer said. “I’m a very lyrical guy, and I was inspired by the way that some of the writers wrote country songs.”
Randy Travis was the first artist whose song lyrics really caught his attention, and by his college years Longmeyer began to write and perform his own songs. Patrick and his late father Marc also formed a two-piece acoustic group called the Standing Ovations, and one of Patrick’s most cherished treasures is a recording he did later called “Family Man” where he and Marc sang harmony together.
“Every time I hear that song, I take a little piece of him with me,” Longmeyer said. “It’s a really special thing.”
As he was getting his musical roots well-established, Longmeyer pursued his other passion from childhood, a career as a firefighter. Longmeyer grew up in Auburn, was a volunteer firefighter in that community for four years, and landed a job on the Jacksonville Fire Department where he is now a driver, engineer and paramedic.
You might think that being a firefighter would give Longmeyer some good song ideas.
“That idea has been tossed around, but I can honestly say I haven’t put pen to paper on it,” Longmeyer admitted. “But it’s a good idea, and maybe I’ll write one some day.”
Meanwhile, Longmeyer continues to write songs about non-emergency-services topics and claims a variety of influences for his work including Garth Brooks, the Eagles and independent artists on the “Red Dirt” country scene.
“Those artists hit the road hard every single day playing their own songs, and it’s inspiring to meet them and open up shows for them,” Longmeyer said.
Longmeyer enjoys playing his own original songs with cover tunes mixed in, and his performance style is more focused on the song vocals than “bouncing off the walls like some artists,” he said. “I’m more like a Chris Stapleton or George Strait, just there to deliver the song the best that I can.”
Things were going well for The Longmeyer Band after they started in 2016. The group played its first show in January 2017 and an impressive list of fairs, festivals and concert openings followed. The band released an EP, or a short version of an album, in 2019 that contained the songs “My Girl,” “Good Time,” “Wrong Side of Good Bye” and “Sunshine.” Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, and many performance venues went dark for a while.
But The Longmeyer Band picked up where they left off once pandemic restrictions were lifted, and they will play “pretty much every festival and fair around” this year, Longmeyer said, including Twisted Tree Music & Event Hall and the Morgan County Fair where they have been the beer tent act following the grandstand headline performance and “there were a couple thousand people in there just a-rocking.”
The members of The Longmeyer Band, Johnny Gee on lead guitar, Alex Holland on bass and Anthony Kirk on drums, join Patrick Longmeyer on vocals for the group’s two latest singles, “Not my problem” and “Cold Beer.”
Longmeyer and his bandmates enjoy every minute of the time they create and perform together, and they look forward to their busiest and most successful year yet. The lyrics from “Good Time” sum it up:
“All I know is we’re all gonna have a good time.”
