Best of 10 Questions... Country

As part of our year-end special coverage, we look back at 2021 with the best answers to some of our best questions.

Duane Hobson
Regional Director, Southeast Promotion
Big Loud Records (11/9/21)

“My inspiration is my parents. My father played lead guitar for many Gospel talents in Nashville, and my mom convinced me to follow my dreams of being in the Country music. I knew I wanted to be a part of the music scene when I use to sneak into [Nashville’s Lower] Broadway bars and listen to live music. Country music has always been a part of me.”

Alek Halverson
Afternoon Host
KASE/Austin (11/2/21)

“I started my show in Austin, while I was still living in Seattle. It was a wild time to move. Right when I got to Austin, I couldn’t go in the building for 10 days because of my recent travel. So it wasn’t until the third month of my time with iHeart until I made it to the Austin studios. When I finally made it, we were limited to the hours we could go in the building to try and limit how many people were there. I’m old enough to remember when this was supposed to be a two-week thing, to flatten the curve. But, here we are. I think we have all become Zoom/Teams professionals.”

Ryan McCredden
Director of Content
Townsquare Media/Quad Cities (10/13/21)

“Don’t say no. That truth has evolved over the years, but it’s still there. When I was starting, it was more focused on opportunities for me. When I was asked if I could work New Year’s Eve 1999 to make sure the computers didn’t Y2K themselves, I said ‘yes.’ I kept saying ‘yes’ to every opportunity to keep growing. I do that today as well for projects that come into Townsquare Media. I’m all about a new challenge/project. The way my ‘don’t say no’ mantra has evolved though, is that now I’m in a position of making decisions. There are a lot of ideas that get thrown at me. I don’t say no. If the idea isn’t great, I still talk it through and see if there is a way to make the concept work for the talent, the client, the listener. More often than not, there is a way to make it work or come up with something that will work.”

Ryan Kramer
Director of Content
Townsquare Media/Amarillo, TX (9/20/21)

“By nature I'm a planner. I'm very regimented and have a routine that I stick to each and every day in order to make sure no balls are dropped. I get in the office by 7 a.m., hop in the studio and start doing my segue work. Once the logs are to my satisfaction, I knock out my voice tracking for KXSS and KPRF. I try to be out of the studio by 9 a.m.. Hop in the office, respond to some emails then write my articles for the apps and websites. If I've done it all correctly, I'm free and clear for other things no later than noon. That gives me the whole second half of the day to interact with sales, complete other tasks and just move freely.”

The Shady Ladies Of Music City (Susan Nadler and Evelyn Shriver)
Podcast Hosts
Monument Records (9/7/21)

Shriver: “[Recording episodes remotely during the pandemic,} we just talked on the phone from our homes with our iPads on voice memo so we would have separate vocal tracks to work with. But it was weird. We didn’t do any kind of video, any kind of Zoom or FaceTime or anything. We just did strictly audio, but God knows we’ve been talking on the phone for years, so that wasn’t too bad. It was just that the quality wasn’t that good. We always sounded like we were shouting.”

Nadler: “Martina [McBride] sounded so wonderful. Of course she had a $100,000 mic. She had [husband and Blackbird Studios owner] John McBride and all of his brilliant technology. She sounded like Julie Andrews, and I felt like an old Russian refugee yelling.”

Jim Murphy
Senior Manager, Country Programming
Music Choice (8/4/21)

[Transitioning to working from home at the start of the pandemic] “was remarkably smooth. Initially, we had some issues, since nearly all our systems were written by our developers for in-office use and not remote access. But our IT team found ways to get us up and running in pretty short order. I’d never planned to have a home office in NYC, but when it was apparent this would last more than a couple weeks, a guest room suddenly became an awesome remote office.”

Laura Moxley
Editorial Assistant
All Access Music Group (6/1/21)

“Working at WIVK in Knoxville drew me to Country as a career, mostly because Country fans are a one-of-a-kind community, and working hands-on with fans at concerts and other events made me realize these were the kinds of people I would enjoy as a target audience from an industry perspective. Their spirit and positivity for the artists they love is unmatched. Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift were definitely the very first Country acts that stole my heart growing up. Attending CMA Fest in Nashville also sparked my love for Country, not only with the talent, but with the environment that a mutual love for Country music can create.”

Niko Moon
Artist
RCA Nashville (3/15/21)

“For me, the most fun part of the live show is, after the show, when I get to go out and I tell everybody, ‘Hey, meet me at the merchandise before you leave and just say “Hey.” I want to thank you for coming.’ That’s my favorite part. I love meeting everybody, meeting the people that dig what I’m doing and support me and give me this life. Because without them there, I’m just some dude in my house playing for myself.”

Graham Bunn
Podcast Host
Spotify’s “Country Shine With Graham Bunn” (3/8/21)

“I have always felt very strongly about trying to make the people around me in my community, or people that I have contact with, to lift them up or [make them] feel better about what they’re doing, encourage them. ‘Country Shine’ is really just an extension of the way that I try to live my life or conduct relationships within my life. If we have an artist on, I feel like it’s a wonderful opportunity to encourage and celebrate their artwork. And on the back end for the fans, just let them get an appreciation for the human beings behind the art that they already love.”

April Rider
VP/Promotion & Marketing
Quartz Hill Records (2/15/21)

“Some may see this pandemic as a challenge, but everyone at Quartz Hill Records has seen it as an opportunity to do what we do best: be creative. We have stepped outside of the box and connected in new ways. Our relationships in the industry are far and wide, and everyone on our team has found their way to connect, even with the world’s challenges. We do what we always do, we find a way. Honestly, when you have an authentic, talented artist with a song you believe in, the possibilities are endless, pandemic or no pandemic.”

RJ Curtis
Executive Director
Country Radio Broadcasters/Country Radio Seminar (2/8/21)

“This has been and will continue to be a difficult year. And so will 2022, for that matter. But we’re not the Lone Ranger in that regard. Everybody we know is facing real challenges. Sponsorship, which makes CRS viable, is very hard this year because we’ve drastically discounted packages for this year’s virtual event. But we have some incredible long term, institutional partners, who continue to support CRS in a virtual year, and I cannot express how much we appreciate their belief and commitment. The biggest void for 2021 is all the transactional business we usually realize, the kind that comes in last minute and helps us cross the finish line on revenue goals. Even entry-level sponsor activations are hard for small companies to participate in. In spite of these challenges, which are out of our control, our sponsorship team of Brooke Sanders and Ashley Bourque continue to amaze me with their tenacity and creativity. Activations on a virtual space are completely different than a physical one, but they continue to find ways to bring awareness and engagement to all CRS partners. All that said, the organization has been fiscally responsible during the past 10 years in particular, with a very sound, long term investment portfolio strategy, which makes our position very stable right now.”

Shy Carter
Artist
Warner Music Nashville (2/1/21)

“Country music stole my heart a long time ago. It’s me as a person and who I am. I’m a family man. I’ve got these two beautiful kids. I love living in the country. It’s a lifestyle thing, but also it’s just the sonics of all the beautiful instrumentation, the banjos and slide steel guitars and just such amazing musicianship as opposed to Pop music or something that’s a lot more simplistic. I love the musicianship. I love the storytelling, the love songs, the wholesomeness of it, you know, that it’s just good values. And then also, over time since I’ve been doing it, the genre has expanded so much and started to include even more sounds that I like, the different kinds of beats and grooves. So it’s really just home for me. [There’s] no better place for me to put out music.”

Matthew Ramsey
Lead Vocalist
Arista Nashville’s Old Dominion (then on RCA Nashville) (1/18/21)

“There’s the songwriter instinct in you that goes, ‘Okay, we know how to craft what we think is a hit song. And we can do that.’ We’re also coming into this era where we’re learning to break down our own walls and show our hearts a little bit, and that’s a little bit scary. So we trust our instinct on writing a hit song, but then we also kind of expanded ourselves a little bit and said, ‘Let’s not worry about the hit song. Let’s just [say], “I love this song and it moves me,” and put that on there.’ That’s the scary part, loving it so much that it was a little frightening to us.”

Kris Daniels
Then Director/Music Programming
Radio Disney Network (1/11/21)

“I love Country music and can guess most songs (if they were radio hits) very quickly. We used to do this thing called ‘Can’t Beat Kris’ on my morning show. It came about because when my husband and I listen to [a] Sirius/XM Country channel, he will cover the radio at the start of the song and ask me to identify the song. I usually get it quickly. He’s impressed when I can guess an older song like Porter Wagoner’s ‘Carroll County Accident’ and others. My husband always says, ‘How do you know that?’ I don’t even know sometimes, but that’s probably because I’ve listened to everything Country old and new since I was a kid.”