Toby Keith Previews New CD

Toby Keith’s latest album, Drinks After Work, will be released on October 29.  He spoke with Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton about recording it, and about two songs that almost didn’t make the final album:

Let’s start with the first song on the album, “Shut Up & Hold On,” which you co-wrote with frequent collaborator Bobby Pinson: This is typical kind of stuff Bobby brings in, and he stuck with it more than I would have.  He wanted me to cut it.  I knew we wrote it to where we had it screwed down, but it wasn’t my favorite thing.  We got in the studio, and it was one of those that bloomed in the studio.

You’ve said that about a few songs about this album.  I don’t recall hearing you say that before.  Am I wrong?  There are a couple on this album, Drinks After Work and Shut Up & Hold On are two songs that was like, I told Mark Wright, the President of the label, that I don’t know if I can sing Drinks After Work.

What was it about it? It was out of my box, it was out of my wheelhouse, there was a girl singing on the demo, and it was really out of what we normally do.  I knew I could sing it, but didn’t know if I could nail it.  Even when we did the rough vocals, I was like I don’t think this song is for me.  I thought we’d done, and don’t think it’s gonna work.  Then when we got in the studio with my engineer and Bobby Pinson, Bobby said, ‘This ain’t my song, so I don’t care if it gets cut or not.’  But we got done with it, and I was like, that thing’s got a shot, and Bobby said so too, so it’s just a couple things we weren’t sure about, but they bloomed til where they not only got on the album, but will be radio songs as well.

Let’s talk about Last Living Cowboy: It’s those kinds of songs, and I’ve done 20 interviews for this album, and that song has been brought up 75% of the time.  But as young as country is now, there’s no way that’ll make the radio, but isn’t it great to hear?

It sounds like a great jukebox song.  Were you influenced by those guys like Red Stegall and Guy Clark?  Yeah, when we started, we had a van and a trailer, and we’d play 5 or 6 nights a week in the same bar.  We’d play San Antonio, Dallas, Amarillo, a 6 week run, and all of those people, Joe Ely, Guy Clark, Gary P. Nunn, they were all playing that same circuit, so I fell in love with that stuff.

Hard Way To Make an Easy Living has a shout out to Tom T. Hall: I performed at the tribute to Tom T. last year at BMI.  He wrote Clayton Delaney, Harper Valley PTA, lots of great songs.

The Deluxe Version has 3 more songs on it, one is extremely personal, Chuckie’s Song: Chuck was the last remaining member of the old bar days.  He got killed in a car crash.  He’d been with me from 88 to 93, then back again for 2 decades, tremendous loss to the whole organization, I wrote a tribute song for him, I had the album done, and when they told me for the Deluxe Version, I thought this was perfect.  It won’t mean much to a lot of people, but it means a lot to me and his family. As a tribute to him, we put his bass to my left.  It’s still every night, playing along, look over there, and he’s not there, so it’s kinda strange.

Another song on it is Margaritaville with Sammy Hagar: Hagar is a friend of mine.  He just had his birthday in Cabo and I couldn’t go, but Happy Birthday Sam, you don’t look as old as you are, but we all remember when you did!  But he did a duets album this year with his buddies, and we did the tornado relief concert in July, and he said, ‘You’re the only guy who’s not on my duets album, I did a laid back version of Margaritaville, would you sing on that with me?’   He sent me the tracks, I ran in the studio, and I recorded a few lines in it, and when I looked for material for the Deluxe, he gave me permission to use it there too.

Before we leave that song, of course it was written by Jimmy Buffett, what’s your experience with him?  Me & Jimmy just did Too Drunk To Karaoke a little while back, so Jim’s a good dude.

Have you been to his studio in Key West?  I did my two biggest albums there.  Unleashed and Shock’n’Y’all were cut there.  We had a lotta luck in there.  I think they each sold 5 or 6 million copies.  It’s a good place to be for two weeks.

There’s also a song on the Deluxe “Call A Marine:” After 200 shows on the USO Tour, I’ve written a bunch of songs we play only for the military, and I realized I didn’t have anything for the Marines.  I brought a lot of funny songs that put a smile on their faces, so I wrote this thing for them called Call a Marine.  It’s like a talking blues, Ray Stevens did a bunch of those things, Charlie Daniels, talkin’ blues rhymes that you scat over.  It’s three verses about why you should call the marines.  Lotta sex and killing.

Is there one other song you want to talk about?  “Show Me What You’re Working With,” we have a group of 4 that go play golf all winter, four couples, and one of the guys yells every time to his wife, “Show me what you’re wrokin’ with,” so I wrote that down in my head for them.  It turned out better than I thought, so we recorded it.  It’s kind of a ditty, not really a single.  “Before We Knew We Were Good” the thing about the girls you dated, and their fathers couldn’t stand you.  That’s what this is about, a small town kid, playing your guitar, and these boys were great before we knew they were good.  It’s got that vein like Beers Ago.

Back to Drinks After Work, it’s the only song you didn’t write, but now that you’ve lived with it, what do you think? It’s got all, as far out of the box as I thought it was, it does a lot of things we do when we write, it’s got a lot of inner rhymes, they did a good job of being clever and catchy.  I think it’s a great song, it lets me open my gills up, so I’m not stagnant, it’s neat for these writers who are excited I cut their song.  Out at my golf course, the girls who work the carts, and you can hear them singing it.  That’s a good indicator.

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Category: Audio