Jason Aldean - one of the most successful American singers in ANY genre in the past decade will make his international debut as part of the high-profile Country To Country Festival at Dublin's 3Arena on Saturday 7th March.
Jason's albums, previously unreleased outside of North America, will now be available through Sony Music. This includes his recent #1 album, 'Old Boots, New Dirt' (which topped the American pop and country charts with over 278,000 sales in its first week), in the 18-track deluxe version. A limited CD/DVD Tour Edition of the album, including 'Night Train To Georgia', a live concert DVD will also be available, which is available from iTunes.
Excited ahead of his first Irish appearance, Jason talks us through his new album Old Boots, New Dirt.
Track 1: Burning It Down
Music is meant to experiment with. There is no set formula for country music. It is not in a rule book anywhere that you have to have still guitar, fiddle, and telecaster played on every single song that you do. I've never seen a rule book say that you can't use a drum or you can't auto tune a vocal or any of that stuff. It's meant to experiment with and it's amazing how much putting a drum loop on a song could change the sound of it. "Burning It Down" is just so predominant; it's not like its hidden in the track. It's pretty much in your face and very much letting you know that this is a drum track. It's not a live drum and obviously a lot of things in hip hop, R&B, and pop world and all that stuff is very loop driven. It's rare that you even hear a live drum on anything, so when someone puts it on a country record all of a sudden it's like whoa... they're not used to hearing that. Then, you're going to have guys come out traditionalist that are going to stick to that sort of very right down the middle approach to making records. And I'm constantly going to go out and try to make each record sound different and have fun when I'm in the studio and have fun with the songs I record.
Track 2: Don't Change Gone
In songs like that I look for it to be real. I look for it to be something that sort of is the emotion; I feel like you would feel or I felt in the past. You want it to be something that is believable that tells a story; tells it in a way where it's believable for people and when they hear that song like "man I remember the girl who I dated in high school and we broke up. I haven't seen her in ten years. The last time I saw her she was married to this guy". Whatever it is, you're like man she was the one, I always thought she was the one. There is people like that out there that when they hear those songs, it brings all these emotions back to them. That's what you want out of songs like that; you want them to hear those songs and get flooded with all these different emotions and things that stir up these feelings that maybe they forgot about or maybe they are going through it at that particular point.
Track 3: Gonna Know We Here
In the grand scheme of these we're here for a short period of time and Gonna Know We Here is that type of song where it's like we may not be here for very long, but we're going to make the best of it while we are. By the time we leave, we're going to make some noise and people are going to remember us and I think everybody wants to feel that way and you don't want to feel like you rolled through life and when it's over like nobody cares. You want to leave your mark and I think the song Gonna Know We Here is about doing that; it's about making the best of your time and leaving your mark on the world.
Track 4: If My Truck Could Talk
I had a 94 Ford Ranger when I turned 17 I guess. I had that truck forever; I think when I sold it I had like 150 thousand miles on it...I took it everywhere. Gigs that I had back in the day I drove that thing all over the place; friends, parities, whatever. It's like you're experiencing all these things in life whether it be fun things or relationship things or maybe you wrap it around a fence post one night and ran it into a ditch in my case. So yeah you go through all these things and kind of been there through all of important things in your life and man if this thing could talk it probably would tell you stuff I can't even remember right now. And I thought it was a really clever way to say that and just a really clever song. Thrasher, one of my favorite songwriters in town, was one of the writers on that and sent it to me. I listened to a verse chorus and I was like okay yeah we are putting this on the record for sure
Track 5: I Took It With Me
Growing up in Georgia, I left home when I was 21; moved here , did not know anybody here, packed up all my stuff in a U-Haul trailer, came here with like my TV and my bed I think that's all I had. But I came here to pursue music and left everything, my family, my friends, everybody there. I spent the earlier part of my life chasing the Nashville dream and I got here and now it's like any chance I get I want to go back to where I'm from. I don't get a chance to go back there that much and I miss it and you spend your whole life trying to get out of somewhere the early part of your life. And then the later part of your life you spend trying to get back to that place you wanted to get away from. It's sort of a lot of things I talk about or things I draw onto in my songs or that. But it was something that I really could relate to and felt like it was sort of written about my life and what I went through, so those are the things that I tend to be drawn to and like to sing about.
Track 6: Just Getting Started
Just Getting Started I think is sort of where I'm at that point too. I've been at it now for nine years; this is my sixth album and I'm just as excited about this album coming as I was the first album. I feel like I'm actually better at what I'm doing now, then I was earlier in my career. I had a lot more practice in the studio; I feel like I sort of dialed in to what it is I do a lot better. And I feel like that I got a long career ahead of me; I still have a long time to do this. I'm in my mid-30's and still can do this for a long time, so I feel like "Just Getting Started" is a good way to sort of sum up where my career is at right now.
Track 7: Laid Back
"Laid Back" I think is one of those songs that talks about the sort of whole party atmosphere of hanging out; out in the woods on a weekend; field party with your friends. A lot of teenagers and 20-somethings do that, at least where I am from you do, and you kind of get off of the beaten path a little bit out in the middle of nowhere and get as loud as you want to and you don't have to worry about the five-o coming to bust up the party and that's just what you do. Adam Shoenfeld is a writer on it who is one of the guitar players we used in the studio. This was the song he pitched to us and again you find these tempos and it's almost like when you hear one you are in shock because they are just so rare...especially a good one. You hear a lot of tempos; they're just really bad ones. So when you hear one that's cool that kind of says stuff you wanted to say; it's cool especially when that thang comes on the radio, it got the big guitar ruff, it's going to be that something people want to turn up to and jam out to and that's what you want.
Track 8: Miss That Girl
I think country music is...one of the things it was built on was heartbreak songs and "Miss That Girl" is one of those songs is where you go through a break up and you sort of forget about everything and all it takes is a picture or whatever it is to sort of to bring all this stuff back. Of course, you're going through a break up or something you think oh there's never going to be another girl like that one until you meet the next one and then she's the best. You know what I mean; it's just the way it is. Back in the day it was mixtapes you hear a song like that you going through a breakup and everybody's making mixtapes. I don't really know what they do now, but they might do a mix thumb drive or whatever and send it to whomever, but that's the deal. That's why people did that is because that's how they were feeling at the time and they would give it to their boyfriends or girlfriend and go here is a brunch of sad songs and this is how I feel. It's because those songs struck an emotion with them and that's what you want.
Track 9: Old Boots New Dirt
I think anytime anybody goes through something that's sort of a life changing thing, sometimes it's good to have a change in scenery, kind of leave everything over here and sort of move on. I think "Old Boots New Dirt" is a really cool way to say that. It's saying it's the same old me; but I'm just going in a new direction. This is a another Neil Thrasher song that is great and the song talks about coming out the other side of a breakup and trying to get as far away from that as you can. You don't really know where you are headed, but you're going to figure it out as you go. A lot of times, that's what songwriting is about; it's about finding a new and inventive ways to say the same thing sometimes. I think this was a way to say that in a way that hasn't been said before.
Track 10: Show You Off
It was written by Neil Thrasher and I just liked what it was saying. You have a girl that you're into and you think she is the best thing you've ever seen in your life and so you want to go make all your friends jealous and go, "Hey, my girl is beautiful and ya'll can all look, but you can't touch", kind of thing. I think that's sort of was basically what the song was about and I thought it was a fun song something that I thought would be really cool for our show. Every guy that's in the crowd out there with their girlfriends going to be going "that's my song". He's riding in the truck with his girl and they are cruising the strip in their hometown or whatever it is; you got your girlfriend sitting in the front seat with you and that's basically what you are doing. Showing her off to everybody and saying, "Hey, she's in my truck, not yours so keep looking but keep driving too".
Track 11: Sweet Little Somethin
"Sweet Little Somethin" is written by David Lee Murphy. He was one of the writers on it who has written a ton of stuff for us in the past, so when I heard that song for the first time, I was actually on the way out to my farm, and I had a CD of songs I was listening to. And I put it in; hadn't heard it yet, and so it was like a two lane road going out to my farm; 50 mile hour zone. I'm cruising down there doing about 75 in a 50, so I figured that was a pretty good sign for the song. It made me want to drive faster which is usually a good sign when you're listening to the tempo. It was something we definitely needed for the record; tempos are always the hardest thing to find for any album. When you find one that's cool you want to lock on it pretty quick and go "yes" because they are diamonds in the rough- you don't find them a lot. That's why "Sweet Little Somethin" or "She's Country" or "My Kind Of Party" songs like that...when you hear those songs it's almost like thank you it was a gift because they don't come around pretty often.
Track 12: Tonight Looks Good On You
One of the songs on the album I think is going to be a huge hit that I hope is, is a song called "Tonight Looks Good On You". It came in sort of late in the game; I had a show down in Orange Beach, Alabama. A friend of mine, Dallas Davidson, came out to the show and he's a songwriter. Dallas and I been friends for a long time and he's been trying to get a song on one of my albums for years and for whatever reason we just never really connected on one of the songs. He had been trying to get on this album; he was about out of options, he goes, "Man I got this other thing I just wrote and you want to hear; I'll play it for you". I was like alright, so I go in my dressing room and played it and I'm like where did this come from; this is a hit dude. I told him that night I'm cutting it...cutting this song, you're getting your first cut and I still don't think he believed me until we finally actually cut the song. And I called him saying, "Hey, it's a done deal; we cut it." And I think it's one of those songs that has a really cool feel about it and from the time I heard it, I heard this song being the single and being one of those things that we played live and looking out and people singing it, so it's going to be fun to see what happens with that one.
Track 13: Too Fast
The thing that grabbed me about the song was flat out I think it's just one of the best songs on the album. I think it's one of the most well written songs on the record. Chris Stapleton, one of the writers on that and I think is probably the best singer in town in my opinion. He sang the demo of that song and it was amazing. I fell in love with the song and I feel like it's a little more of a soulful kind of thing and its cool to have a song like "Too Fast" or "Too Night Town" or one of those things where you can really get soulful and show off your vocal style a little bit. Those melodies and things like that that are in the song; we had never really record anything like that before. I thought it was really cool from that aspect and like I said one of the most well written songs on the record I think; probably the most well written song on any record I've ever done.
Track 14: Trying to Love Me
There is always going to be people that are falling in love or out of love, or whatever it is. Going through the best time, the best relationship ever, or the worst breakup ever, or whatever it is. I think when you start having songs like that; there is always somebody who can relate to those kinds of songs. You're stubborn and you're constantly fighting with somebody and in reality all they're trying to do is be there for you or whatever you don't really see it at the time. That's one of my favorite songs on the record. I think songs like that I really don't think you can go wrong with because I think anybody who has ever been in a relationship period can relate to that.
Track 15: Two Night Town
I think you're constantly trying to be better and wanting to be better at least you should. I think a song like that is about a guy who knows what his faults are, he knows what it is, he knows what causes them. It's about trying to fix them and I think that's a relatable thing. I think we all have our flaws and I think sometimes they are easy to see. Seeing them and changing them; being a better person for it is up to us. I think it's a song that will hopefully make a lot of people have a gut check and think about it and really listen to the words because it's a really cool song, very well written song and something that I think a lot of people can relate to for sure.
Jason Aldean's new album Old Boots, New Dirt is out now on iTunes, and he plays the Saturday night of the Country To Country Festival at 3Arena on Saturday 7th March.