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10 Questions with ... Country
December 10, 2019
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This week, we look back at 2019 with the best answers to some of our best questions.
Ty Bentli
"The Ty Bentli Show" host (1/6/19)
"Nashville is unlike any city, especially when it comes to the easy way the artists and our show integrate into each other's lives ... We considered basing the show in New York, and ultimately felt like it would have been a poor decision strategically and for most of our affiliates. Country music lives here. Country music fans and listeners converge in Nashville."Russell Dickerson
Triple Tigers artist (1/13/19)
"I'm not out here to kind of just give it a whirl and walk away. I'm here to stay, and I want [radio] to know that they can trust me, and I'll just keep bringing the hits, try to keep writing good songs, and keep this thing going."Lindsay Ell Stoney
Creek Records artist (1/20/19)
"The fact that I have been signed to the label now for ... seven years, it's insane! It's insane that people believed in me enough to know that I'm going to do it. It's a matter of when, not a matter of if, and that's always been my mindset ever since I got to town."Brandon Lancaster of LANCO
Arista Nashville artist (2/3/19)
"I would like radio to know that we're not in an RV anymore. We started out in, like, 2015. We were road warriors and had this Winnebago we'd tour around in. Sometimes radio people still ask about it, but we got rid of that thing like two years ago. That thing's long gone thanks to them."Dylan Scott
Curb Records artist (2/10/19)
"The coolest thing about having your music on the radio is when program directors and other people involved in the decision-making process think enough of your songs to actually play them for their listeners. That alone is something to be proud of. But when one goes all the way to the top, there is no greater honor."Bruce Logan
now OM and Brand Content Director
Hubbard Radio/West Palm Beach (2/25/19)
"Country truly is unlike any other format. The relationship with the audience is very deep. They welcome your station into their homes and it becomes a member of their family. And, of course, the relationship with the artists is unlike any other format. In what other format will you get a call from a superstar act asking how their song is researching or taking you to task for not playing their new single enough? ... The Country format is a family, and I am proud to be one of the dysfunctional members."Matt Stell
Arista Nashville/RECORDS artist (3/3/19)
"I remember when I got to town driving up and down [Music Row] just wondering how I was ever going to get any of those doors to open up for me, or anyone to pay attention to what I was doing. Then fast forward a few years and I just feel like I'm the luckiest guy there is ... Radio means so much, especially in Country music. To hear my song played in a lineup of people that I grew up listening to is pretty amazing."Amber Glaze
KVOO/Tulsa MD/morning co-host (3/12/2019)
"Sometimes I feel like we (as a whole) in the industry play it a little too safe. Our listeners are much more eclectic and diverse than we give them credit for."Aaron Watson
BIG Label Records artist/owner (3/26/19)
"The first 10 years of my career I was independent out of pure necessity, pure survival. I was independent because that was the option for me to continue chasing my dream. I've always been proud of that. I don't think that signing a record deal is a bad thing, it's just never been a good thing for me."Duke Hamilton
midday host
WUBE/Cincinnati (3/31/19)
"I kind of wonder about radio's future. I'm kind of at the end of this thing here compared to some of these younger folks, but I have concerns about where the business is going and how it will be delivered in the future. But [for me,] it's just always been magic."Grover Collins
PD
WUBE/WYGY Cincinnati (4/21/19)
"I literally feel like I'm just a captain of an aircraft carrier. It's been in the water long before I came along, and it'll be here long after I'm gone. My job is to keep the needles out of the red and don't crash it into the reef."Joe Diffie
midday host
Country star and KXBL/Tulsa (4/28/19)
"I've done thousands upon thousands of interviews, and the ones that I always walk away feeling the best about are the ones [where] you forget that you're on the radio."Country star Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts (5/5/19)
"We travel thousands of miles each year, and it's not easy to spend that much time away from home. It's not easy to spend days in parking lots, only to play two hours a night. But when you get up on that stage and the lights come up, the band starts to play, you realize you're doing exactly what you were put on the Earth to do. When you see how your music has connected to the people sitting out there in that audience, that makes all of the hard nights, and days and miles worth it."Caylee Hammack
Capitol Nashville artist (5/12/19)
"I'm not afraid of this industry. I think this industry is filled with people that love good music, and sometimes we just have to show them what good music is. That sounds so cocky, [but] ... we've got to be heard. You have to make sure someone listens."Filmore
Curb Records artist (5/19/2019)
"The radio tour has been a whole other world, and it is a piece of the puzzle that I was super excited to be a part of. Everyone has been super supportive. I've gained a lot of great relationships from the experience ... The travel is exhausting, but outside of that, hearing my song on the radio, and building the story makes it all worth it."Country music legend Randy Travis
(as told by wife Mary) (5/26/19)
"Recovery is one day at a time. With a stroke you never know the aftermath, so you take it slow. You're grateful for any new thing that happens or any new brain connection that creates a new word or a new action. So, that brings joy in every day ... We're very fortunate to be here six years after the stroke, and against all odds as far as the doctors were concerned. So, we're just grateful for every day."Brandon Ratcliff
Monument Records artist (6/9/19)
"I do feel this innate connection to the very fabric of music sometimes because of who my family was. I really have been involved in music in some form or fashion basically since I was born. I never thought of myself that way until I got older and got into the music industry myself, on my own merit."Riley Green
BMLG Records artist (6/16/19)
"I don't know how to write about anything else but the stuff I already know. I'm lucky that I get to travel around the world and see different things, because I feel like my songwriting would be pretty boring if I didn't. I've always written about what I knew, and how I grew up, and I guess many people can relate to that."Ryan Hurd
RCA Records Nashville artist (6/30/19)
"Songwriting is two things: It's perspective and it's craft. If you have to be inspired every day to write a song, then you're going to run out of that really quickly, whether you're happy or sad. Most of us who have been doing this a while have learned how to write songs from the storytelling aspect, and not necessarily from the emotional well."Jackie Stevens
Director of Regional Promotion, Midwest
EMI Records Nashville (7/7/19)
"The reason I chose to stay in Country and stay doing what I was doing after [being at the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting] -- because it was a lot easier to not do anything -- but we chose to keep going because the industry as a whole kept us together. We felt so much love and support and, in a really, really dark time, I was surrounded by nothing but love. And that changed everything."Loyd Ford
PD
Then WCYQ/Knoxville (7/14/19)
"Listeners have more choices. A different time, energy, feel and the way people see the world has changed to a certain extent. But ... life changes, technology changes and people don't really change. The technology changes are actually exciting because they bring us closer to listeners than ever before. Behavior is still controlled by impulses and what people want. Our business is about finding out what people want and giving it to them. Also, it is about communicating rapidly that you are giving them essential experiences they crave. If you can do that well, you are probably good to go."HARDY
Tree Vibez Music/Big Loud Records artist (7/28/19)
"I did not grow up listening to Country music at all. I honestly couldn't stand it back in the day. I don't know why, but I just didn't like it ... I grew up listening to Rock 'n' Roll, Classic Rock, and Grunge ... But I grew up country and did all things country, and that is where I feel I've learned to speak that language. All of the country influence that I have came from life, not music."Thompson Square
DavMo Records artists (8/11/19)
"Becoming parents just freed us up from worrying about a lot of small [issues] that we didn't need to worry about in the first place. Our son is our main focus in life, and, as a songwriter, you're always searching for something of an infusion, if you will, of emotion and inspiration for music ... When I go into a [writing session], I am armed with ... a lot of emotion, and a little bit more force than I think I used to have. It seems a bit easier for me to be honest with myself [when] writing."Katie Bright
morning co-host
WUSN/Chicago (8/25/19)
"Our show is live, local, authentic, honest, funny and relatable. I am the demographic. I'm a mom with two kids living in the suburbs, driving an SUV, balancing work and life. I use my real life and what my friends are talking about in our show content. We laugh a lot, we talk about hard stuff, we embrace Chicago and we talk about what matters to the people who live here."Ken Burns
"Country Music" documentary filmmaker (9/15/19)
"The idea that, somehow, commerce and convenience permits us to categorize any group of music, particularly Country music, into its own prison of definition is the thing that we abolished. It's not an island nation in which you need visas, and passports and special immigration legislation to get to. It is, in fact, attached to Jazz, and to the Blues, and to Folk, and to Gospel and to Rhythm & Blues ... So, the idea that it is one thing, and isolated and segregated as if it's down on some lower 40 bottom land hardly worth considering, is the thing that we joyously hope we wrecked completely."JC Coffey
Director of Midwest Promotion
Big Machine Records (9/22/19)
"If I had to choose any part of my former life [in radio] that was my least favorite it would probably be the painful remotes. Not all of the remotes, just the painful, useless ones that were sold as an addition to a spot buy where you had to sit for two hours relaying manufactured excitement back to the station 60 seconds at a time while no one was there. I don't miss those."Kelleigh Bannen
Singer/songwriter and "This Nashville Life" podcast host (10/6/19)
"Luke Bryan gave me one of my favorite pieces of advice ever. He said, 'I try to take my work seriously, but not take myself too seriously.' I take myself seriously, and I think there's a real lesson in letting go of the desire for people to perceive you as perfect or [having] the answers."Haley & Michaels
Hickory Records artists
"Something that I think is important to understand as artists is that a lot of the radio programmers are in it for the right reasons because they love music and they want to help and they want to believe, [so it's about] understanding that it's not all about what they can do for you, but what can you do for them? It's a partnership, and if they invest really valuable real estate that everybody wants of their station in supporting you, we're always trying to look at what can we do for them to legitimately support the station and, hopefully, grow together."Travis Denning
Mercury Records Nashville artist (10/27/19)
"My job and my creative responsibility is making a song, recording a song and trying to make it the best it can be. After that, I'm like, 'Hell, this is gravy train biscuit wheels.'" -
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