Oliver Anthony, the musician whose song "Rich Men North of Richmond" went viral last year, said in a long YouTube video that he plans to leave the music industry to start a traveling ministry.
Anthony, whose real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford, said in the video, "I’ve decided that moving forward, I don’t need a Nashville management company. I don’t even need to exist within the space of music. So, I’m looking at switching my whole business over to a traveling ministry."
He added that "our system is broken."
He also shared that his grandfather had been a traveling minister as well.
"I have this vision for this thing that I’m calling the Real Revival Project, and it’s basically going to start as a grassroots music festival, but hopefully it grows into something that can literally change our landscape and our culture and the way we live," he said.
He said that he wants to bypass the "monopolies" of Ticketmaster and LiveNation in a setup that parallels the Nashville circuit, and he had his first "thrown-together" show on Saturday.
His plan is to stimulate small-town economies and bring music to places that haven't had it in a long time.
He further wants to help musicians in these towns find success.
Anthony said in the video that he made enough money in the last year to last him the rest of his life. He has more than a million subscribers on YouTube and his song broke records on the Billboard charts.
"I never have to work another day in my life. I have everything that I wanted," he said.
He said he felt a "calling" from God "to make a real impact in this world, to make a real change, to help light a fire that no one really can extinguish in my lifetime or after."
"I’m just somebody who thinks the whole way we live is a--backward and so stupid, and it serves nobody but the people at the top of the hierarchy that we no longer really need to serve," he explained.
Anthony said he was already trying to get out of the music industry when his song about D.C. politicians went viral.
He said he is conservative, but isn't a Republican or a Democrat.
