Behind the scenes of a couple of songs from our debut album

I know I've been slacking a little when it comes to these blogs, well, if you're one of the few who enjoys this kinda thing, fear not I've written a few of these now and I'm scheduling them on here so I don't have to think of it... it will just happen. Anyway when I was writing a few of these it occurred to me that not every song has an amazing story behind it. Although every song has a story of sorts. So, here you go. I want to tell you a little about Finish the Bottle Let's Get Drunk and Hillbilly Rockstars.

Finish the Bottle was the second song I ever wrote and my first slow song. I had just written my first song a week or so beforehand and was getting a lot of love from pretty much everyone for it. I thought, well I've finally broken the seal, so now writing is just something I'm capable of doing. I was spoiled already. Regret it in the Morning, my first song. Came together very quickly. It just flowed out. Since then I've had some luck, some songs do just pour out... while other songs take time and work. A lot of work. It was my day off and I spent the bulk of it with my guitar and notebook. I had the concept in my head, (in my day job I have a lot of time to work that kinda thing out, it's where I get most of my ideas) I'd even figured out the chord progression. It just took a while to get all the right words where they belonged. Nine hours to be exact. The good part of that was I convinced myself I could write anything if I just stuck to it. The next song I wrote (Playing With Fire) went about the same. Good concept, good melody but it took all day to write it. A good side story to Finish the Bottle, I guess I did a good job of putting emotions in my recording of it because I got messages and calls asking if I was ok. I assure anyone who's interested to know, it's just a song to me. In everything I write I'm trying to illicit a response from listeners. It makes my heart happy to know this and a couple other of the songs I've written get a response like that. To this day, Finish the Bottle is one of my favorites I've written and someday I think you'll hear someone famous singing it. (Chris Young needs to return my phone calls!)

The idea for Hillbilly Rockstars came to me shortly after we had the amazing experience of opening for the one and only Granger Smith. That was our first really big concert event. It was huge to us. 4,000 fans getting into the 8 songs we got to play. It was about 9,000° on that stage and we gave them everything we had. At that point we only had three original songs and only played two of them that night because one (Finish the Bottle) was slow and we didn't want to kill the buzz. The idea came to me that I could write about the kind of musicians we were. Small town famous, hitting all the local hole in the walls and now with our own music and sound we started getting bigger and better opportunities. It started as a music video in my head. I could see us running on stage, slapping fans outstretched hands as we were getting going. Then I imagined us at the local bar, packed so tight there's no room to move. After a day or two of building the idea up in my head I sat down on my living room couch with my guitar and a notebook. They say to write what you know and what I knew then was we were booked every Friday and Saturday night all over the area. We were small town rockstars... even though we were playing mostly country music. It probably only took me 15 minutes to get it down on paper. The song is about as true to life as any song I've ever written. We show up before everyone else, set up and prepare to entertain, not just play music. Originally the song was intended to have two very different vocal parts, one Lee could sing and one I would that would layer on top of one another. I couldn't make it work. Maybe someday I'll get that to work in a song. Until then, Hillbilly Rockstars will be my go to song to sum up my music career. Hitting that stage is right where I want to be.

Then there's Lets Get Drunk... let's just say when I sat down to write it I pretty much felt like I was writing a song we wouldn't play out much if at all. Like one of my earlier songs that doesn't get much love, Drinkin' Song, I assumed I was writing a B track song. Essentially I did just that with a few diffences, but we'll get to what sets LGD apart. A lot like Hillbilly Rockstars I sat on the couch with my guitar and notebook and prepared to write the idea I had in my head. I wrote hillbilly and lets get drunk pretty close to one another. If you listen to them close you might notice they have a very similar strumming pattern, something I hadn't ever done before that. When I wrote it I felt like this would be a great song for Blake Shelton, and I'm not shy about asking anyone who can get it to Blake to do so... I would love nothing more. Now back to where I said it's a B track song with a couple of exceptions. Now it doesn't happen every time we play it, but it happens enough to justify the live performances of it... it gets the crowd going. Most places we play are bars. A lot of the time getting drunk is exactly what people came out to do. It's turned into a theme song for anyone wanting to have a few at the end of a long week. The other thing about Let's Get Drunk... it's our biggest hit on the jukebox. It out performs every other song we have out there combined. A lot of that is thanks to a couple of places that have taken it as a daily theme song. I love that and I appreciate the support. Now if only one of you could get it in front of Blake... get on that.

That's about it for this round

... stay tuned I have some good stories for Worn coming in the next one...