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About Jason Aldean
Lives and careers have tipping points, days when
investments pay off and when a bunch of scattered
puzzle pieces suddenly fit together. Jason Aldean
doesn't have to think long when asked to call up his
top game changing moment of 2006.
"We were playing a show in Portland, Oregon. It was
a little club, just an acoustic show," says the
Macon, Georgia native. "Hicktown' (Aldean's first
single) had been doing okay. It was probably 25 on
the chart or something. The club was basically sold
out. And we went into "Hicktown,' and the place just
went crazy."
"Hicktown," propelled by a spanking beat and a
girls-gone-hillbilly-wild video, would go Top 10
before long, but that's the night it found its place
in the full-roar, sing-along party that is Jason
Aldean's groove. "We couldn't even hear ourselves
for people singing to us," he recalls. "And that was
the first time when I got the feeling that we had a
hit. We had had pretty decent crowds at our shows,
but it seems like from that show on things turned a
corner. You get that kind of feedback and it hits
you that you may end up having a career."
A year after that show, the whole career thing looks
better than ever. At a time when new artists in
country have struggled to be heard, Aldean broke
through a crowded field, capturing the Academy of
Country Music Award for Top New Male Vocalist and
earning a gold album just 12 weeks after his debut's
release. Aldean followed up "Hicktown" with "Why," a
fist-to-the-heart ballad that rang the bell at No. 1
on radio and CMT.
Now he's preparing to drop his second album, a
collection of songs that sustain his emphasis on
relatable, recognizable lyrics while pushing into
new sonic territory. The standout tracks include a
tight duet with fellow rising star Miranda Lambert
on "Grown Woman," the brooding "Back In This
Cigarette" which almost screams to be made into a
video, and the swampy groove of "I Break Everything
I Touch." The project narrowly dodged disaster when
a fire at Nashville's Treasure Isle Studio very
nearly destroyed the recordings during the final
mastering stage. The project, titled Relentless
after a particularly feverish cut on the disc,
benefits he says from the track record he
established with his debut. "We were able to find
great songs for the first album, but we had to dig a
lot harder to get them," says Jason. "And this
album, it wasn't as hard. After a couple of hits,
people are more willing to give you great songs. So
we kind of had a whole new world open up to us with
this, and we took advantage of it."
Why has Aldean been able to connect with so many
people so fast? His fans would probably say
relatable songs, a powerful, dynamic voice, and
total dedication to giving himself up for an
audience. He's done it for years at a stretch across
the Southeast, in bars and taverns and some places
you'd best not even go. He's thrown down for 15
people in halls that could have held hundreds. And
he's spent the last year proving he can connect from
the biggest stages, the ones that they haul around
in multiple semi-trailers.
You get the sense that Aldean gets pumped up to sing
live the way college quarterbacks fire up for games.
The Tennessean called his music "amped-up
contemporary country, with Southern rock and
honky-tonk influences." Aldean calls it "aggressive
country." So it's no surprise that behind his radio
success is a desire to commune with his crowd, to
make a party happen wherever he and his band go. He
played some 200 dates last year, a hard pace, but
one he's trained for.
"I was playing clubs when I was in high school,"
says Aldean. "But it was one of those things where I
don't know if people knew how serious I was. I don't
even know if I knew how serious I was about it at
the time." After high school, he put a band together
and went out on the road. "I actually had a chance
to go to college and play baseball or go after a
music career," he says. "But I was in bars every
night, having fun, playing music. At that point I
threw everything I had into it."
Those high school days were spent in Macon, Georgia,
hometown of music legends like Otis Redding and
Little Richard. "I didn't think about it much at the
time, but looking back I don't think you can grow up
somewhere that has that kind of musical history and
not be influenced by it in some way. I definitely
think I was influenced by it, especially the
Southern Rock thing. It just taught me to be who I
am."
For a while there, it looked like Jason might
sidestep some of the hardships typically waiting for
a newcomer in Nashville. He landed a major label
record deal and a publishing contract. But the
record deal fizzled after a year, and his publisher
started to get antsy.
"In the meantime, my daughter was born in 2003,"
says Jason. It was a blessing, to be sure, but one
that put the not-yet-happening music career into
cold new perspective. "I basically just started
putting in for some jobs back in Georgia. My
priorities had changed a little bit. It was more
about making sure I had baby formula and diapers at
home than it was about me getting a record deal. I
was doing what I had to do."
When the Broken Bow deal came through at the last
possible minute, it was great news but certainly not
a guarantee of anything. Independent labels had
struggled for years to be taken seriously at radio.
But label founder Benny Brown had been building his
brand and a promotions team for several years by the
time Aldean came along. They'd even helped
singer/songwriter Craig Morgan thrive after being
dropped from a major, landing big hits and paving
the way for Aldean's "Hicktown" and all that would
follow, including the momentous ACM win. Aldean says
that was the no-doubt high point of his career so
far.
"I had grown up watching those shows on TV from the
time I was a kid and seeing all the guys that I
looked up to on the show and winning these awards,"
says Jason about his Top New Male Vocalist nod. "At
the time it seemed like such a reach to get to that
point, so to first of all be sitting in the
audience, second of all to be nominated for an
award, and then to actually win it. . . .I think
anybody who goes back to see the tape of that night
would probably see how nervous I was. I almost
knocked the microphone over."
It's no nervousness and all nerve on Aldean's new
album Relentless. You can feel the attitude he
brings to his live shows in its opening lines. The
lead song and lead single, "Johnny Cash" is about
freedom and abandon, a fantasy about blowing off the
grind and the naysayers and hitting life's highway
with the top down and "Folsom Prison Blues" or "Big
River" pumping on the stereo. Later, Aldean sings "I
Use What I Got" about the pride and steel it took to
get through the hard times in a breaking career. The
album closes out in a similar vein a song with a
"Honky Tonk Woman" backbeat about a serial
heartbreaker called "I Break Everything I Touch."
Relentless also has a darker side, with a handful of
songs about the wake of busted love and sonic
textures that are grittier than one normally hears
on country radio. He and long-time producer Michael
Knox took advantage of success not by trying to
repeat themselves, but by looking for new angles.
"It was cool to go in and experiment a little bit
with this record and not have to worry about
everything being so mainstream," Aldean says. After
all, he knows his fans. He sees them most every
night on a stage somewhere, and more often now on
the street or in a restaurant, where he's being
recognized more and more regularly.
"It's cool. I like meeting people and hearing what
they have to say," he says. "One thing I learned
about fans is that they're brutally honest. They'll
tell you if they like something and they'll tell you
if they don't. But that's good. That's the way I am
too."
Jason Aldean Official Website:
http://www.jasonaldean.com/
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Jason
Aldean
