Nick Thomas may not have gone to college, but he can still relate to the trials and tribulations of college life.

“When I go visit my friends, they’re all worrying about 8 a.m. classes and overdue papers,” he said in an interview with The Muse. “For me, it’s more about 1 p.m. load-ins and making sure everything’s ready for the show that night.”

Thomas, a young, acoustic solo artist turned lead singer and founder of The Spill Canvas, is intent on bringing his own brand of intense, Midwestern emo-rock to the rest of the world. While many of his peers headed straight for college, Thomas self-booked his own tour and hit the road three days after graduation.

Since then, Spill Canvas has shared the stage with a number of bands, including As Tall As Lions, Hit the Lights and Gratitude. At the end of the month, they’ll be switching over from an opening spot with Motion City Soundtrack to a North American tour with Straylight Run and The Exit.

“With Straylight, it’s more of a chilled-out crowd,” Thomas said. “We can play a different kind of set list and show our versatility.”

With so many miles already logged, it may come as a surprise that Thomas is still as optimistic about the music business as when he first played the bars and coffee shops of Sioux Falls, S.D., where the music scene is “very, very minute, if existent at all.”

“We try to be as real as we can,” Thomas explained. “If we’re just human, people can relate to that. Sometimes, I can feel the connection with the audience and I get lost in the moment and I’ll start staring at someone – it either weirds them out or makes them laugh.”

Thomas’s idea of success is down-to-earth and hinges on his own personal connection with the fans.

“When we’re able to do a play a small, sold-out show and everyone sings along, there’s a feeling of connecting with people we’ve never met in our lives through the music we play,” Thomas admitted. “When [the music] means as much to the fans as it does to us, they become a part of it and it becomes very pure. That’s success.”

“All of our dreams have already come true,” Thomas added as almost an afterthought. “Everything else – it’s all just icing on the cake.”