Cody Marshall is Too’s very own champion pole vaulter turned country singer

When Too’s opens its doors at 9pm on a given night, the crowd inside is a far cry from what’s to come in an hour or two. Small groups of people huddle into booths or wait to get drinks at the bar. Most are talking to their friends, some are watching a game being projected onto the screen. Few pay attention to the guy tuning his guitar and fiddling with the speakers, at least until he starts playing the best country music this side of High Street.

Cody Marshall has been playing at Too’s since August 2014, providing his own spin on some of  country music’s top hits. Before he graduated from OSU in 2014, Cody had a successful pole vaulting career on the Ohio State track and field team, earning a Big Ten Championship title his freshman year. While pole vaulting has played a big role in his life, music is something that has been with Cody since day one.

When did you start playing music?

I come from a super musical family. I started playing guitar when I was maybe 10 years old or something like that. My grandpa taught me – he was a song writer in Nashville for a long time. He wrote a number one hit for Loretta Lynn in 1973, so that was the start of everything. I just played and sang a little bit. I never performed growing up, I just knew how to play and learned some songs along the way. In college I learned a few songs because I just kept playing and it’s a pretty cool thing to do sometimes. I graduated and…I figured I knew 50 or 60 songs at this point, so that’s when I was like ‘Well, maybe I can make some money doing this.’ I went on to ask the guys at Too’s if I could play there and I played all over Columbus.

So you learned everything you know about music from your family?

Yeah, I never had any formal lessons. My grandpa was my next door neighbor and he would be like, ‘Hey come over here and I’ll teach you something.’ I never really sat down and focused on learning guitar, I never had lessons every single day. It was just over a period of time that I gained my skill.

Were you always drawn to country music or did you explore other genres?

When I play with my brother, we do a lot of rock n’ roll stuff because he likes to bang on the drums really hard. I play a lot of electric guitar just with him but I never really thought about performing anything other than country music because we are a country music family. I mean, my grandpa always had bands growing up, he still has a band but they do like more gospel stuff now. But it was always country music.

When you were a student at Ohio State, were you a Too’s regular?

Actually no, I did not go to Too’s a lot. Despite playing live music and singing, I’m not the biggest fan of going to concerts. Like any time I went to Too’s, I was appreciative of what Jon does because he’s so talented and…I would learn a lot just by watching him. When I was at Ohio State I would go out in sweatpants and go out to Little Bar and drink $2 pints on Wednesdays or I’d go to Chumley’s and drink those giant chalices.

How did you balance being an athlete and a student?

The first quarter was a shock to me because in high school I would play baseball and track in the same season, and still do school, and still have time for friends. I tried to do track, which is 25 to 30 hours a week here, and I was like, ‘I’m doing fine in school,’ that’s what I thought. Well, I wasn’t doing well in school. I got the worst report card I had ever gotten, ever, that first quarter. Then after that, I found a rhythm of what I need to do to maintain over a 3.0 and succeed on the track. If you can find the balance, it’s not as hard.

Were you still working on your music in college or was it something you put off to the side?

I always had my guitar at school. What really helped was that every year I had roommates that were interested in playing. So it would be fun…teaching them stuff by getting to play a lot more because there are people interested in it. It wasn’t something I deliberately worked on, but it was that steady process of picking it up and going with it.

So you graduated and realized you wanted to perform music. Why did you go to Too’s?

Honestly, I was going everywhere. I went down to talk to Scott and Jon, and they had never heard of me before; there was nothing to be heard of. So I was like ‘I want to come in and do a set and see if you guys like me.’ Scott, he’s a very smart guy and he’s very perceptive. He knows that there’s a market for country music at Ohio State and a ton of people who love it. So he had me down to test me out and he gave me a schedule and told me to be there every Friday. Fridays started picking up and he told me to start coming Wednesdays. And then it escalated to ‘We’ll take you off Wednesdays, put you on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays.’ So it was kind of a developing relationship there. But picking Too’s was kind of the luck of the draw.

Is it ever surreal for you while you’re playing at Too’s, and you look out at all the students and realize you used to be one of them?

I think that feeling you’re describing is most noticeable for me when I was playing on game days at Too’s because it’s crazy in there. At Too’s it’s mostly younger people, but on game days you sometimes get the older people too and pretty much everyone is feeling it. I’m like ‘Wow I used to be in college and I used to go down to Too’s and sing with Jon White while he’s playing.’ Now I’m like, ‘Hey I’m just like Jon White, what a day.’

What’s your most memorable Too’s experience you’ve had when playing here?

We just got done beating *ichigan, and…right as the clock struck zero on the game, and I get on the microphone and go, “We don’t give a damn for the whole state of *ichigan.” And the whole bar was in on it. And then I break out into my next song and kept rolling with it from there. The whole night was just crazy.

How has Too’s changed since you were a student?

I think Too’s is pretty timeless. I don’t know if it has changed, other than me being here and bringing a country element to the bar. Obviously, I can’t perceive it from the other side, I don’t know if it’s changed to anybody else. But the bar is still the same, a lot of the faces are still the same, and the beer is just as cheap.

I think Too’s is a place where everybody kind of feels welcome. For me, there are bars I don’t feel comfortable at because there are people that are a lot different from me at the bar. But Too’s, everybody’s in there and just having a good time.

What’s the best thing about being a part of the Too’s family?

Just the guys. If you know Scott, he’s just such a down to earth dude…he’s very straightforward. You can learn a lot from a guy like Scott who has built something from nothing. My aspirations are to someday be a small business owner, just like my dad was, and what I try to do is to pick up on things that other small business owners are doing. That’s what I’ve done with every job I do, but especially with Scott. Too’s was nothing, then he built it into this live music venue at Ohio State and everyone knows what Too’s is all about.

And then Jon has been the greatest friend/mentor to me because he’s been [playing music] for so long. He loves to play golf and I love to play golf, and we go out and hit some balls and talk, not just about music, but everything. A lot of learning going on there.

Why do you stick to country music?

Because I think it’s uniquely me. I think that if I tried anything else, it wouldn’t come out authentic. I think it separates me from the rest of the musicians in the area. What I’m trying to develop is a certain persona where you know I’m going to play country music and that I’m unique…not only in music, but in how I act and things like that. Like, we don’t need a Jon 2.0, he’s fantastic being Jon number one. There’s different guys that play around and I just want to separate myself from them, so I stick to what I know, which is country music.

How do you feel about Too’s closing in June?

It’s disheartening because it’s very consistent for me. They like me and I like them, and I’m always there. I’ve been filling out my schedule with other gigs because some of the things I’ll get noticed for at Too’s, I’m starting to do a better job of putting that forward to other venues. But I’m hoping that they reopen and I can start over with some consistency again. Until then, I’ll maybe just be playing at a different bar every weekend, but that’s fine too.

What’s your overall goal for your music?

I’d like to be a songwriter like my grandpa. I don’t know if I necessarily have the talent to be a great performer on my own. Maybe I do, maybe with the right coaching from someone who has the right experience, I could develop that. But what I do have experience in and a great mentor in is songwriting, and that’s where I see my traits lie. My grandpa has a studio in his basement, and when I get there I do as much work as I can. It’s tough because he lives in East Canton, but if I can get a few of these songs on tape and get them connected somewhere, maybe somebody will at least listen to them.