Your first album My Kind of Music sold nearly 100,000 copies with limited radio support. What does that kind of enthusiastic fan response mean to you?
I’ve always liked songs that were compelling in some way – that make me react in some way. I’m not a big lover of just safe, fluffy type music. I knew from way back when that “My Kind of Music” would be a polarizing song, and Warner Bros. knew it too. They were good enough to get behind it anyway, and work real hard to try to get it out there. It did do very well when you consider the lack of big radio airplay, because that’s what it’s all been about for so long. Through word of mouth, through internet, and the stations that did play it, we did sell quite a few copies of that in comparison to a lot of people who are having much bigger hits who aren’t selling as well. It was definitely something we were very optimistic about, and knew we had something to build with, and the early response was great, and it pretty much set the stage for everything I’ve done since.
What was that waiting period like for you between the end of your Warner Bros. deal, and releasing your second album independently?
Honestly, I think a lot of artists would take this. It’s like being in prison a little bit, because in my case I had recorded a lot of stuff to go toward a second album with Warner Bros. that we ended up obviously not being able to release because I left the album, and then they still had the right to those recordings. So I ended up basically compiling some other songs that I had, some of which were things that I wanted to cut for that second Warner record that just didn’t make it or that they fought me on or whatever else. The deal with A&Rs has always been a very interesting test with me. It’s just learning how to deal with the hand you’re dealt. I was fortunate to get a record deal, fortunate to get that type of promotion early on, and to actually get a career started and have a fan base developed. I definitely credit Warner Bros. for helping me get that going, and sometimes things happen and deals don’t work out the way you want them to on both sides of the coin. So nothing really bad to say, but there was a little time when I felt held up, and after that when I was able to release something new after being freed from that deal, it was a very liberating experience, and we just released a record called Crazy Like Me. It was just kind of a bunch of cheap demos that we threw together. That’s not to devalue it in any way, because we really loved what we had there, but it was just not your typical approach when it came to budgets and all the typical studio musicians and that kind of thing. But because of that, it sort of took on a life of its own and had a different sound, and that of course led us here.
What are some of the challenges and rewards of recording as an independent artist as opposed to being on a major label?
When you’re an independent artist, obviously you can do whatever you want to do. You don’t really have anybody telling you to record this song or don’t record that song, or this is going to be the single, or we don’t hear a single, or any of that stuff. It’s a lot simpler obviously if you’re independent, and you don’t have a whole lot of budget to work with. Then it’s going to be a struggle to compete with the big guys, but it all depends on what your priorities are, and what your goals are. Then at the time, I just kind of wanted to stay alive, and to continue to do what I did for a living, because I knew there were people out there that liked it and wanted to hear the music. At the same time I lived in Nashville, and was still writing songs and now and then maybe getting a song or two recorded by another artist. It all was almost like having my cake and eating it too – as long as you didn’t want a really high dollar cake.
What can you tell us about your new single “Those Jeans”?
I can tell you that I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the reaction it’s gotten so far. I’ve had the song and the album done for a while. After I wrote it, I started playing it out because I thought I had something with it. A couple years have gone by now since I started trying it out on crowds, so I knew it worked on some level with people. I knew that they responded to it, so this has sort of been a little validation of that suspicion, I guess you could say. It’s just been great. It’s great to watch people sit and listen to a song they’ve never heard before and react as the lines go by. That’s when I think you realize you did it right. We can’t always as songwriters sit down on any given day and come up with something like that. It’s a little something extra in the air that day. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been handed a gift here and there, and I think that’s one of them. I’m just happy to see where it’s come from where it’s started, and I’m looking forward to see where it ends up.
How does your current album Rayality fit in with your previous two albums? In what ways is it a progression from your past work?
Ah, it’s the same old [stuff]… no. Everything’s going to be a progression because obviously it’s a different body of work. I don’t know if this album shows any of the cliché things like how I’ve grown as an artist or a person or anything like that. Some of the songs might make you think I’ve digressed! [Laughs] It’s just a continuation of a body or work that I’ve worked on for years now. Songs come when they come and how they come. It’s sort of a concept album in the way that the concept was “Let’s record a few songs we like and put it all together and see how they fit.” We didn’t sit down and say ‘Okay, well we’ve got too many mid-tempos and we need a fast one here, and we need something about a different subject over here because we’re not covering God or….’ You know what I’m saying. We didn’t have a set of rules or a rulebook that we were following. Just whatever kind of got our rocks off. These songs actually started out as me playing just an acoustic pass and singing, and then we built around it. We added more instruments and production techniques and idea. There was a lot of time that went into that. These weren’t tracked in a live studio with a Nashville band. We had some other musicians that were friends of mine who’d come in after the fact and add their stamp to it. So it was a different approach than the usual paint-by-numbers thing that they do here. Not to say anything bad about that, but we just did it a different way.
Do you have anything else coming up that you’d like to talk about?
Well, I just signed a little deal with Flying Island Entertainment, and they’re going to be promoting my single “Those Jeans” to radio. Anybody out there who has heard this song and likes this song, we appreciate you calling or emailing or hitting up your Facebook page to your favorite station and letting them know. Maybe we can get some more spins and turn this thing into a big ol’ hit.
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