He lost his voice, music saved it: The Ian Moore Story

Ian Moore has never had trouble letting his guitar do the talking, but singing is a different story. Moore lost his ability to sing.

“I have the same thing RFK has, neurological,” says Moore.

Ian found out he has spasmodic dysphonia. A few years later, the condition flipped, and Moore could sing, but has trouble speaking.

“It is with my voice, but it’s my brain,” says Moore. “So when I sing, it’s freer. It’s weird.”

Despite Moore’s world being turned upside down, giving up was not an option.

“I choose to lean into it,” says Moore, adding, “It is hard to live in a world without really talking. But man, music is about getting inside of yourself and showing who you are, your uncomfortable sides. Here I am.”

“We’ll be backstage, and he’ll be having his issues where it (voice) cuts out when he’s talking, and then we go up on stage, and he sings like Curtis Mayfield,” says Moore’s Texas Headhunters bandmate Jesse Dayton. “He’s doing incredible soul singing, falsetto stuff, and just killing it.”

“He just rolls with whatever, and he comes out, and he sings his ass off every night, so it’s really cool,” added fellow Texas Headhunter Johnny Moeller.

“When I’m playing on stage, it’s amazing. It’s so fun,” said Moore.

Ian hopes his story can help inspire others battling adversity in life.

“That’s part of why I’m doing it,” says Moore. “I think we all have something, everybody does, and we can get so caught up in what we think is holding us back. The reality is that you stand up for what you have, who you are. That’s your strength. So, to me, do I wanna deal with this crap? No, of course not. But I’m dealing with it, and I get up in front of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, and rock ’em. And to me, I’m focusing on that. That’s the thing you gotta focus on, whatever you’re dealing with.”

To Moore, there’s no other choice.

“If you get in a corner where you think it’s so hard, you can’t do it, you’re done.”

Moore and the Texas Headhunters will release their sophomore album, Rise and Shine, on October 9.