Jake Owen’s Beachin’ Summer Tour
Jake Owen is on the road with his first major tour: The Days Of Gold Tour. It kicked off up in North Dakota back in March, and will continue through the end of October. Jake was very excited to talk about all the work he’s put into this tour. He spoke with Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton.
This is an accumulation of literally the last ten years of my life. After all the tours I’ve been on, from Kenny Chesney to Alan Jackson to Jason Aldean, I’ve learned from so many people, to now be THE guy who’s got his headline show, all this stuff, being responsible for everything, I spent so long with just 6 or 7 of us on one bus, and now we’re a staff of over 40 people. I didn’t realize that starting on a bar stool in Tallahassee with a dream of doing this would ultimately be as great as this, but I’d have to become the CEO of my own company. It’s taken a lot of dedication in how I want it to look, how I want to be presented, and it’s an awesome feeling to see it all come together.
Your whole family is here today: Yeah, my wife and daughter have been on the road with me for the last couple years. But my brother, I flew him up at the last minute. I quit school 6 credits short, and he thought I was crazy. I’ve always been someone who likes to share things with my family and friends. My family has seen my show, but they’ve never seen all it takes to put it together.
Talk about all the stuff people will see on stage, what were you trying to achieve? I wanted it to reflect me, I wanted it to reflect me being from Florida. I’ve always like the Tiki kind of vibe. So this room is called the Tonga Hut. It’s off the arena where everyone’s welcome. It’s a room where people can feel the vibe of the show. It’s filled with photos I took of my friends, a lot of these moments happened on the way here. I want our guests to have a safe haven to visit. It’ll be a fun room for people to hang out in.
With all the artists and writers on this tour, will you be recording on the road too? Yes. We’ll have another room on tour and it’ll be called The Jungle Room. I’m a big Elvis fan, and Elvis’ Jungle Room was Tiki vibed. So it fit, but it’ll be a creative room. I made an effort to have our production manager to bring a recording system that travels with us. There’s so much creativity and time on the road where people just sit around. So if someone wants to go in this room and record something, you never know what will happen. We as artists need to bounce things off each other, and that room will designate that atmosphere.
Obviously Days of Gold is a song on your album, and also the title track, but explain how it fits as the name of the tour: The Days of Gold to me, and to anyone, are the times you remember, the times with your friends and family, the times you look back on, the times that make your life what it is. For me, it’s times like right now. People are feeling that same way. People see me for my brand. They know who I am. The vibe of this tour, along with songs like Barefoot Blue Jean Night and Beachin,’ those songs have helped people realized I’m the guy from Florida. I finally feel at home. The set on my stage is a recreation of the Riverside Café in my home town, with the nautical rope, in between the pylons, which is the dock out back. When I played that place, I never thought one day I’d have my own lights and stage and sound system. So it fits well with who I am. When I look at the truck and trailer, I feel like I can be me, and it makes me feel comfortable.
I have lots of fun toys with me this year. I have an old school woodie Jeep. My dad had one, and so I bought one, it’s baby blue, I restored it, and we’ll take it on the road. We have four trucks, four of the buses, and one of the buses will look like a Volkswagon van that you see on the side of the truck.
What’s the meaning of the Volkswagon van to you? It’s just a feeling of freedom. Everyone knows the hippie era, but you can load a bunch of people in a van, camp out in them, with songs on my album like “1972,” that’s the vibe of it. We wanted to bring our carefree attitude on the road, so they can see a picture that paints the vibe of what we’re doing out here. When they see that bus, they can take a picture of it and take it away with them.
So let’s talk about the Jake Owen bobblehead: That’s not mine. They made those last year when we went to Puerto Rico. There was a photo of me taken like this, so the label thought it was funny to make a bobble head. From the back, I look like a California raisin. I didn’t know my hair was that long. But from a bobble head to that huge stage, there’s a lot of stuff I’m surprised I have.
Are there some special features of your show that people should look for? A really cool part of our set is I put Tiki Bars on both sides of the stage, and each day, I’ll pick people out of the crowd or packing lot, ask them where they’re sitting, and trade their tickets in for those seats. So we’ll let them sit on stage at the Tiki Bar, bring them island cocktails, and have them see the show from the stage. I always wanted to do things differently, so giving people to sit on stage at a Tiki Bar, have a drink, while we’re doing the show should be pretty cool.
For a complete like of dates, go to JakeOwen.net
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