Jason Merritt/Getty Images for dcp; Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty ImagesRumor has it Miranda Lambert has moved on from Blake Shelton and is now dating fellow country crooner, Anderson East.
If you're a big country music fan, you may already know all about her new beau, but we figured we'd give some extra insight on the 27-year-old cutie.
Here are 7 things you should know about Mr. East:
1. His real name is not Anderson East: Let's start with the basics. It's important to note that his actual name is Michael Cameron Anderson. After releasing his first album under the name Mike Anderson in 2009, he decided to officially change his stage name to Anderson East in 2010 with the release of his EP titled Fire Demos.
2. He's a Nashville man: Born and raised in Athens, Alabama, he later attended college at the Middle Tennessee State University where he studied music engineering. He moved to Nashville a few years after that. "It was where music was being made," he told Paste magazine about Music City. "And at the time, you could still afford to be a musician and be broke and have cheap rent and know there's such a great community of people that were doing the same thing. It was a really inspiring place—I mean it still is."
3. Music has been his passion since he was a kid: His parents bought him his first four-track recorder when he was 13. "I kind of tried my hand at sports and school, and I wasn't very apt at either one of those things," he told the publication. "Anything that was keeping me mostly out of trouble, something that they could obviously see I had passion for, they were incredibly supportive in it."
4. His family is also heavily into music: His mother played the piano and his father sang in the choir at their church. He told Paste, "It wasn't like the most soulful music, but it was incredibly spiritual and very moving music, and I think just that the essence of it was the commonality—like those songs are meant for the congregation…That kind of attitude has definitely popped its head back into my mind. It just comes out because that's what was put into me for so long, and they're beautiful!"
5. He has a vast collection of musical inspiration: He tells Sing365.com that it was hard to get music in his small, southern town and thus his inspiration ranged from Snoop Dogg to Led Zeppelin. He credit Michael Jackson's Black or White as the spark that encouraged him to study musical production.
6. He plays both the guitar and the piano: He also told the website that he got his first guitar at 8 years old and later followed in this mom's footsteps by learning the piano.
7. He is currently about to head out on his first headlining tour: He took to Instagram to share his excitement, writing, "Time for me to get up and do my thing. Excited to announce our first headlining tour."