Latest / Inside Country with Wayne D / Sam Hunt Gets, "Locked Up!"

Transcript

Sam Hunt Gets, "Locked Up!" · Inside Country with Wayne D

• 0:00
  It's Wayne d hanging out. Sam. Thanks for taking the time out.
• 0:03
  Man. You are you're a busy guy right now with the tour dates and
• 0:06
  with new music and everything. How's life. Life's good. We've been busy,
• 0:10
  but it's been great. It's good to be working and got my family
• 0:16
  out on the road with me, which is nice, so I'm not missing
• 0:20
  all the exciting developments at home. So everything's good. It was there ever
• 0:25
  a time, you know, getting married, thinking about starting a family.
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  Was there any part of you that was hesitant about starting the family, part
• 0:34
  because of the road lifersus actually being home, or was the plan always like
• 0:37
  y'all are coming with and the story? Huh? I think I put off
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  starting a family. I was so hyper focused on work and and then of
• 0:49
  course, you know, to start a family, you want to make sure
• 0:52
  you find the right woman to start the family with. And I knew the
• 0:57
  right woman was out there. I knew it was Hanno, but my work
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  for a while got in the way. You know. We were we dated
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  and then weren't together, and then got back together and then wanted to really
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  build a strong foundation to bring kids into the world for you know, with
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  and so that was a couple of years of that, you know, building
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  that with my wife and then still working hard and trying to figure that out.
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  But yeah, I was hesitant. I think I put it off longer
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  than I would have now, knowing what it's like having kids. But I
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  was, I think intimidated by it for a few years there where I should
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  have just dove off in it and done it well. And let me ask
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  you, your career has been so unique the way because not many people can
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  celebrate their rookie album Mantavallo and the success it had. I mean some people
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  are like, hey, I got a couple of strong songs in Boom Montavallo
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  is a banger from start to finish? Right, how has that? How
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  has that molded the rest of your career? Are you? Are you overthinking
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  things? Because that's as much as success is fantastic, stick in a creation
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  business like you're in, that that could also mess with you a little bit.
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  Yeah, there have definitely been some I don't want to call them downsides
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  because I wouldn't trade anything, but maybe downsides to having an album do so
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  well right off the bat. But that being said, it built a foundation
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  that I'm still that I still have. My career is still anchored in that
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  in that album. You know, even on the road, or especially on
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  the road. Luckily, I've been able to continue to have songs do well
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  over the years, but that album still holds down my entire career. So
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  I wouldn't trade anything for the success of that album. And I'm grateful that
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  people responded to the entire album. And I wish I could go back.
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  I wish I had the time to devote to creating an album the way I
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  did back when I made that album. It just it gets harder as you
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  get older, you know, and have started family and get married and all
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  those sorts of things. But such a romantic time in my life, and
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  I have so much, so much nostalgia for that era of my life and
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  that album. I'm just I'm so grateful for and I'm so grateful for the
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  folks who appreciate that album and who continue to come out and sing those songs
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  with us to this day. I'm going to use the word frustration, and
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  from the minimal interactions I get to have with you, I feel like that's
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  not the right word, but it's gonna be what fits best. Is there
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  any frustration as you continue to work your behind off and you continue to create,
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  and you continue to tour. Is there any frustration with the legacy that
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  that album started your career with to now being like, yeah, hey,
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  guys, I'm still making music. I'm still making good music. Maybe you
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  could wrap your arms around a B. C. D. And not that
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  they haven't, right, but yeah, I think, well, I think
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  I need to learn, not that I haven't, but I'd like to really
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  write music and make music that reflects this era of my life as authentically as
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  that music to that era of my life, which has been the tricky part.
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  And I hope to be able to do that. But I don't know
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  for sure if the music that I've written since has done it as well as
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  that album did. But so I think that's some of the disconnect. I
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  think that's why there may be more some more appreciators of that album and that
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  era and folks who want me to make music like Mounto Vallo. But I
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  think it's less about making music that sounds like mounta Vallo, but making sure
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  the connection between the music and me and myself is as strong as that album
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  and who I was then was. If that makes sense, Yeah, No,
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  one hundred percent. And that's the thing is somebody who has been to
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  shows, somebody who's interacted with you you, that's a that's a chapter in
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  your in the book of your life. Right. The music you're creating now
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  is where you are now. And let me tell you, as a fan
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  of what you do, I'm not saying like mounta Vallo is great and what
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  you're doing now is still good. No, it's all fantastic. It's just
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  you're on a different part of the spectrum in your storytelling. So bring me
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  to this EP. Why does an EP make sense versus an album? Because
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  to a fan, they don't get it right. That's more of like a
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  back end thing. But why an EP versus I'll just put a couple of
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  songs out or let's hang on to this for an album. Yeah, the
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  I think if I had my druthers, I would put out all the songs,
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  the last ten songs that I put out. I'd put them all out
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  at once on a record because they all were written from the perspective of writing
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  for an album. So I consider those ten songs an album. But then
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  you know, when I put them out over the last two and a half
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  years, so I don't want to bundle them up now with these last three
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  songs and call that an album, because I know that makes people roll their
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  eyes and say, well, these songs, this is not an album.
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  These songs have already been out. So but then I'm also caught between having
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  to fulfill my obligations to my record label. So there's that whole thing going
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  on behind the scenes where you know you owe them albums and you've got to
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  package them a certain way and get it done a certain way so that you
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  can get out of your record deal or progress in your record deal. But
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  so all that considered that, the couple songs at a time has been my
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  approach. But these songs really and maybe for posterity sake, at some point
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  in time, I'd like to put them all together, just so ten twenty
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  years from now when you look back at you can look back at these songs
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  as albums. You know they'll be Mount Vlos, Southside and then whatever these
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  ten songs are potentially called. But for now, getting getting them out I
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  needed to. I needed to package in this way for a lot of reasons.
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  But this will be the end of the last ten song chapter, I
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  guess, and I can start fresh after this. Do you hope to now
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  that you know this this ep essentially like closes the book on where you were?
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  Are you already working on where you are and where you're going? Then?
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  Yeah, I've already been putting a lot of thought into it and really
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  more than that excited about diving off into that next step. I'm gonna I'm
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  touring quite a bit this year, but not next year, and we'll see
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  about the you after that. But I really want to take the time to
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  try my best to write right right and put together a batch of songs and
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  put them all out. Whether I can wait and put them all out at
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  once, I don't know if I'll be able to do that or not.
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  You know, there's always that thing in the back of your mind where you
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  don't want to go away for too long. But you know, if it's
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  a necessary part of putting out a project that people can connect to more,
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  then I'd rather have maybe less people connect to the music more than more people
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  kind of passively interested in it, which makes fantastic sense. I want to
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  touch on the creation part in a second here, but I want to ask
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  you about the tour. Locked Up is a song that I've seen get attention
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  before you released it on social media, and now that you release it,
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  it feels like fans were kind of waiting for that. So one, did
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  you dangle that carrot on purpose? And like there was a right time?
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  And then why is that song strong enough to be able to hold the spot
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  on the EP that it does and now it's the name of the tour.
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  Yeah, I think I didn't. There wasn't a marketing plan with putting out
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  pieces of the song and then mapping out dropping the song a year later or
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  however long it was. When I have a new little snippet of an idea
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  or a song and I'm sitting on it, it's hard for me to sit
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  on it for a long period of time. So if I can play it
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  at something like the luncheon, you know the UMG luncheon that we do at
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  the Rhyman, which is where I played Locked Up last year, or maybe
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  a little video and a green room somewhere, I'll play a piece of a
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  new song, even if I know it won't be out for a while.
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  It's just just as a message to the fans and I am working on new
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  music. Here's a little piece of something I don't know, and I'll be
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  able to get in the studio and get it recorded and out, but but
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  I am working on it and I want you guys to hear it. And
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  so here's a of it, and that song specifically, I think because it
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  has a little bit of life and maybe to the most devoted of our fans
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  who paid closer attention than the broader audience. But for them, they'll they'll
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  remember those little snippets and hopefully they know that I'm not playing games or anything
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  like that. I'm just excited to get out new music and i want them
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  to know that I'm thinking about them, and I want to keep our relationship
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  strong by staying in touch. It's like old friends. You want to connect
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  every once in a while, even if you don't have a song ready to
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  put out. How hands on are you with picking the people that are going
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  to be a part of your tour, Because I know, sometimes it happens
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  organically, and then sometimes there's some suggestions and spots to feel so you like
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  sounds good. Yeah, sometimes it's happened in a lot of different ways.
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  I like for there to be a connection of some kind to the people that
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  I'm on tour with not just like booking agic calling and saying the metrics show
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  that this artist is doing well here there, and so they'll help you cell
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  tickets. I like for there to be a connection, and so typically there'll
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  be a list of folks who we could potentially reach out to and and I'll
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  try to find connections with those people, whether it be personal relationships or maybe
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  I've heard their music or seen a video of them and I just saw something
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  that I connected within them, in them as a human being, and that's
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  that's kind of how I approach it, and then make the decision from there.
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  Because I see you got Russell Dickerson obviously great newer artists that are starting
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  to get some traction. Between Dalton Dover and George burs that's going to be
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  an awesome tour. And with the EP out Friday, I wanted to ask
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  you because of the success you've had on not just the radio singles, but
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  I mean, you have to admit that some of your album cuts rival the
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  radio success on a lot of music you put out, which there's a lot
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  of artists that can't say that. Right between all of between all of that,
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  what's the song that you're surprised to this day still connects And what's the
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  song that you're like, I love y'all. But if I could not perform
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  this for a couple of tour stops, I'd appreciate it. That's a good
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  question. To the first part of that question, I would say Ecstasy for
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  my first album. Still, we play that almost last in the set,
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  and it feels like a crescendo moment. We really go all out with the
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  production on it and have even beefed up the music relative to the album recording
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  and the energy of that song, you know, it's kind of the show
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  starts with a lightheartedness and it grows into this more this stronger, more assertive
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  minor chord section, which is which has like break up in a small town
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  and an ecstasy. So it gives me an opportunity for my shadow side to
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  come out a little bit during the show and I can size that muscle.
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  But as far as a song that I would rather that I'd be good with
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  taking out of the set, I would have said before this tour, I
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  would have said raised on it. But now we kick off the show with
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  it, and we've built this whole intro into the song and I don't know.
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  I've come around on it since playing it first on this tour, so
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  maybe i'd have to pick another one, But off the top of my head,
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  that's the one that I would say, because I've been playing it the
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  longest. Probably last thing I want to ask you before we let you go
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  is the EP. By the time we get this out, the EP will
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  be out. Is there a song on there that you're great at telling stories
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  through your music, right, and whether it's upbeat or it's a slower song,
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  like there's some feeling in the words and the lyrics that you put to
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  the music. Is there a story that was tougher to tell than others in
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  this EP for fans? Huh? I don't guess. So, you know,
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  I have the song locked Up, which was a title I had,
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  and I have my own personal experiences with with with being locked up, but
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  I wanted to tell the story from the wanted to zoom out and make make
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  it more about a guy who's messed up and his lady stays with him regardless,
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  more about that than it was about a specific experience with getting locked up.
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  You know. I have another song, cop Card, that I wrote
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  back in the day with another song about run ins with the police, a
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  run in with the police, and that one is more detailed. It tells
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  the story, the personal story of that guy and how he ended up having
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  a run in. This one is more just simply the night I got locked
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  up, and aside from that, you don't hear any details. You don't
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  know really what happened, and I wanted to make sure to keep it that
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  way for this one. So it may seem personal from the outside looking in
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  if you know some of my history, but it wasn't necessarily me delving into
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  my past or a unique experience specifically that I had. Well, Sam,
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  I know you're busy and you got a lot of these lined up today and
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  you need to get home before all of Nashville ends up flying into Mississippi.
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  You're always a world class dude. I'm a fan of what you do,
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  especially and personally, so thanks for taking the time, dude, I appreciate
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  you a lot. Man, it's good talking to you. Likewise, take
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  care of Samsley, buddy,