Jason Aldean Celebrates 6th #1
There was a party on Nashville’s Music Row this past week. It was to celebrate the latest #1 for Jason Aldean: “Dirt Road Anthem.” Of course Jason was there, as were the song’s writers, Colt Ford and Brantely Gilbert. Before the party, Jason spoke with the media and discussed the song, his current My Kinda Party tour, and lots of other subjects:
Talk about Dirt Road Anthem: To say the song is different is an understatement. My thing has always been a good song is a good song. I heard a rapper once say the first rap song was “Devil Went Down to Georgia” by Charlie Daniels. I thought the song was cool, which is why I wanted to record it. I can’t say I thought it could be a #1 record. I thought if people could hear it, they’d like it. But what it does from there out is anybody’s guess. But we’ve had songs stay #1 longer, but this gets a bigger reaction.
Talk about the next single, Tattoos On This Town: It talks about reminiscing when you were a teenager, didn’t have any cares, did what you did that shaped you as an adult. As a teenager you don’t realize those will be the best years of your life.
Tour: This tour has surpassed what any of us imagined. This was our first year to try amphitheaters. We figured it would be a learning year, didn’t know if we could sell out 25,000 seats. We just played Chicago for 28000 people. The last time were played there, it was at The House of Blues. It’s incredible.
Do you have tattoos? I have one on my shoulder, and one on my forearm that has my daughters’ names on it. I would never release a song about tattoos if I didn’t have one.
Next record? Me & my producer have met, we already have a lot of songs, and we could start on a record now. But our plan is to go in in October. So we’ll see what comes in between now and then, the cool thing is we have people writing for us now, trying to get on our record.
Concert For the Cure: September 30th we have a show in Roanoke VA, we do a show to raise money for Susan G. Komen for breast cancer. We used to do a show here at the Wildhorse. Now we take it on the road. It’s important to me because I lost a friend to breast cancer, I have a wife, a mom, and two girls, so it’s one of those things. The disease sucks, we want to raise as much money as we can and do our part to find a cure.
Talk about the song’s co-writer, Brantley Gilbert. Is he a friend? Would you cut more songs by him? I don’t know, now that he has a record deal, he may not give up any more songs. I’ve known Brantley for years. He got started like I did, I have a ton of respect for people like that, he’s a great writer, people try to stir things up between us, he’s good, I’m a fan of what he does, and he’s got a single that’s doing well for him, so good luck to him.
Any road stories from this year’s tour? Thompson Square doesn’t have a drummer because he broke his foot playing basketball, so our drummer is playing for them. One day an ambulance came in because Chris Young’s bus driver broke his skull. The funnest thing was our drummer had his birthday, we took over a karaoke bar, we looked at the pictures the next day and looked like The Hangover. It’s been fun.
The role your band and producer plays in your sound: It’s a combination, that’s what makes it work. My producer’s great at directing traffic. We all have different influences. We’ve all worked together for 12 years.
The video for Tattoos On This Town: We filmed it in an airplane hanger, has a performance thing, and the video will be somewhat different than we’ve done by the way we tie it together at the end. It started out with a young couple, then takes you on a different path, I don’t wanna give away the surprise, but it’s pretty cool, might tug on heartstrings a little.
Your audiences are pretty crazy. They’re on their feet for every song, plus you put a lot of action in your show, so where do you get that energy? For me, I’ve been waiting on this since I started at 14 years old, this is the tour I wanted to have, you can’t help but get jacked up to see 22 thousand people. When they’re like that, you feed off that. I want them to be exhausted and come to more shows. We’re amazed on stage watching the crowds. When people come out, you wanna give em everything we’ve got. That’s how we got to this point.
My Kinda Party to be used for the ACC: This weekend is like Christmas for me, college football kicks off. I’m an SEC fan, but the ACC came calling, I’m hoping to get free tickets. I re-wrote some lyrics to fit what they do. It’s cool they want my music.
Category: NEWS
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