Brad Paisley: Inside Rising Star
Brad Paisley is now being seen every Sunday night on the new TV reality show “Rising Star.” Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton attended a live broadcast of the show in Los Angeles, and spoke with Brad about it:
I understand your first inclination was not to do such a show: That’s right. I said no quickly. When my manager came to me with it, I said no. Then he came back a week later with a video of what it was going to look like, and I said, ‘That looks pretty cool.’ Basically that’s when I started getting serious about it. Especially when I found out it was all live voting, using phone apps, and the singer knows if he’s going through by the time he’s done singing. They can see the faces of the people voting. But the thing I didn’t expect how much fun it would be off the bat, and how much fun it continues to be for me to sit there and be somebody who’s trying to help these kids have a career.
Did you know Kesha or Ludacris before this show? No, hadn’t met either, and we’ve become close friends because of it, it’s been one of the most rewarding things about it. Ludacris bought a house in the Hollywood Hills that’s really nice, it’s not far from where we do the show, and the second week, he said, ‘Let’s all get together.’ So we did, and talked about what we can get away with, what’s fun, and what people want to see, what’s our job, and how we should help these kids. But this is how a text exchange will go: We were mentoring all day on a Tuesday, and he texted, ‘After we’re done mentoring, let’s go eat.’ I wrote back, ‘I have to go to the Planes Fire & Rescue premiere, I have a couple songs in the movie,’ and he texted back, ‘Let’s all go.’ So he & Kesha went with me to the Planes premiere, we all went in the same limo, and walked the red carpet.
Was there anything that surprised you about Kesha and Ludacris? There’s nothing that wasn’t surprising. I didn’t know what Ludacris would be like. I didn’t know if he had an entourage and five layers of people around him. The same with Kesha, she has such a bad girl personality as a musician, I wondered if she was warm and nice or if she’s cuss me up. And there’s none of that. The thing you learn about Kesha is she’s rebellious, but it’s an inclusive rebellion. It’s like, let’s all be rebels. I like everybody in a militant way. If you see her on the show, she’s that way. She wants to take all these performers home.
Blake Shelton told me how surprised he was about how involved he’s become with the contestants. How about you? I can completely see that, I feel that same way. Somebody comes across that stage with a unique voice, and you want to help them. Like the kid Jessie, who had this bluesy voice who can sing Joe Cocker, and he’s only 20 years old.
What’s your sense of these talent shows? Can they produce a star? They can, but they frequently don’t. That’s something I don’t want to see, and that’s the job of myself, Kesha, Ludacris, and Josh Grobin. What our job is if Ludacris loves Gabrielle, cut a record on her. Unfortunately there aren’t any country folks left. How have the eliminations affected you? Are you surprised how you feel, thinking they’d go further? I felt that way about Sarah Darling, because I don’t feel like what happened to her was totally fair. Like with Sarah, I wanted her to have a homecoming, so we took her to the Opry. I didn’t want her to land in Nashville and go home. I wanted her to come home with a first performance on the book that says ‘We think you’re great.’
What has surprised you the most about doing this show? I thought I was going to have to find create ways to tell people they’re no good. I thought they’d sing and I’d say it was like food poisoning. Simon Cowell was great at that. But then I realized that’s not the job on this show. They already know, because America voted. We don’t have to tell them, because they already know. All we can say is something positive, and that’s fun for me. Like the guy who sang a Keith Whitley song, he didn’t do a good job, and I told him he reminded me of the Alan Jackson I used to see on The Nashville Network before he got a record deal. He’s got a voice that a couple years later, he might be ready.
So have you heard if the show will be picked up for a second season? I don’t know. There are rumors of how that might look, but I don’t know yet. I imagine they don’t allow us to say anything. That’s one of those things they want to announce.
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