Jason Aldean: The Bumpy Road to Success | Breaking Big | OZY

as a teenager growing up in Macon Georgia Jason Aldean dreamed of a future as a country music superstar but after years of driving big rigs and playing small-town gigs Jason all but gave up that dream how close did you come to quitting I was extremely classic so what pushed this country kid to challenge the very shanwa he loved grind out a career of hits and come back from witnessing a national tragedy in Las Vegas all while maintaining his course to breaking big what makes people successful what are the unexpected turns a night that propel people to greatness [Music] I'm Carlos Watson editor of ossie I'm out to uncover the real secrets behind breaking big [Music] [Music] I don't necessarily make music based on what I think my audience is gonna like I make music based on what I like and what I want to go out and perform every night if I like these songs and I can relate to what they're saying and and I want to go out and sing them every night there's an audience out there that's gonna feel the same way man I love this spot yeah we've been here I guess for about a year and a half or so my life is so hectic on the road and I found this place and I need to get to the house I just looked over and saw the creek and you know I look around now and believe me I'm very aware of how fortunate I am and it's cool because I've been able to pick back my parents for helping me out all those years and kind of give me a kick in the butt when I needed it so they must be proud I hope so yeah good we grew up with country music in the house you know I listen to a lot of Alabama you know Dottie West and Kenny Rogers and Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers we always had family get-togethers they were always singing and playing instruments and all and Jason wanted to be right in the middle of it my dad my uncle would sit in the living room and they say like Merle Haggard and George Jones and really I started wanting the scene just so I could sit in the room with those guys his daddy always loved music and even after bairn I divorced our family still remain friends listening to music and playing music his dad was always involved in his life he bought me this little cheap guitar and just said if you learn to play I'll buy a nice guitar but to me being a huge baseball fan I'd rather watch baseball so every night I watch the Braves and baseball had always sort of been what I thought I was going to do all through school he would be playing three different ball teams so in Georgia Jason wanted to pursue baseball but in the summer he would go and spend with his dad you know I was down at my dad's house out of Florida and it's kind of bored you know he'd be at work and I really didn't have anything else to do so I started trying to learn songs and he looked up and you've been doing it for five or six hours straight a couple months later I was teaching him stuff and so true to his word he bought me a nice guitar and I think that's how you learn and get better you got plenty of time to practice ya talent that's a contributing factor but we should also talk about the fact that he would practice for 12 hours a day in ninth grade and tenth grade and 11th grade so when you see people who are at the top of their field I think part of it is talent but another part is practice and and salt about the craft it didn't take long before Jason was ready to turn those hours of practice into action and at 14 years old he began playing on stage I started getting into some talent contests trying to get out and just see how good I really was compared to everybody else money was tight with us when Jason was growing up as a parent I worried about him you know and I worried about where things were headed and how things would end up it wasn't until he first started performing that I realized that he was very talented [Music] I started winning some of those talent contests I started to realize like hmm that can go play my music in bars and not have to go to school that sounds great so so that was kind of the beginning so it was trying to find a job that would allow me to take off when I wanted to because I was playing shows so I worked at Pepsi I had a friend of mine that worked there and make him I got to be on the truck riding around all day and I was listening to Garth and McGraw and and then when you don't like what's playing yo let me see it's on the rock channel okay I like that one started listening to Bob Seger and all my brothers and Fotis reading he was from my hometown so you act I was gonna submit that cuz naked has been home to as you said a home and brothers bunch of other folks I definitely think I was influenced by those guys a lot they were guys that went out and worked the circuit and so I put a band together and he just kind of started going and doing that you know I had a band on him we were playing in my hometown but I knew there was more to the world than making Georgia so we went out and started playing Georgia Florida Alabama got in a studio had a few songs we had written and then next thing you know I'm on stage playing those songs at a club called the buckboard in Atlanta after a few years of long hauls and dive bars Jason's unique style and boys finally got recognized and would earn him his first big break back in 1998 country music was very kind of tame very structured very formula but Jason got it on stage he had his cowboy hat pulled down he had his big belt buckle his shirt was tucked in you know but they were singing very aggressive music and that's what was great about it he was just rocking real hard like it was Motley Crue but they were singing traditional songs and I'm like man this is great so that night I walked up to him at the buckboard and I said man I love what you do and I probably looked like a kid too and he just goes well where are you from and I sitting with a winner chaplain I didn't know this but later his mom was like he didn't know who won't hurt apple was he didn't know you were anything I'd like to do this and I'd like to do that and get you to Nashville and by this time I'd heard that a lot and it had never turned into anything so I was just kinda like here we go again another one of these guys you know and and then when I found out he was from Macon Georgia and I was from Macon Georgia that made it interesting so I hung out and talked to him and sat in his truck he had Alabama's greatest hits he had Lana Ritchie Backstreet Boys Guns and Roses and then he had Merle Haggard and when I saw that said man give me a CD so he gave me a CD where he was wearing a cowboy hat helped you know his long hair and was wearing a sweater you know it was very very very cool not now the Lucian of country music is good country has evolved since day one as recently as the 1980s we had kind of come out of a Kenny Rogers era Dolly Parton ear in the seventies where you know Alabama the band was looked at as you know heretics they were long-haired and they were you know they were allowed different interpretations of music of popular music is a good thing otherwise we'd be listening to the same damn song for the last 100 so I rushed home from work that Monday nothing you know no phone call to mic of course don't hear anything for a few days some when I got to Nashville I called him and get home and there's a voicemail and and he had called me and and called him back and he wanted to sign me to a publishing deal writing songs I moved to Nashville right before I turned 20 to Nashville in terms of country music really is the epicenter all the record labels are here Sony Warner Universal every artist wants to come to Nashville and get a record deal and get the plate on the radio that's the brass ring he rose really fast to the opportunity when we brought him in the studio man he sounded so good MCA offered him a deal off four songs then the guide MCA left and went to Capitol so then he went to Capitol and signed Jason we got a deal within six months of him being in Nashville and that really kind of started it and then for the next seven years it was a rollercoaster ride while Jason learned to write and play music he hadn't yet been exposed to the harsh realities that the music industry would soon teach him well he was young so he could have had some misconceptions about what was going to happen I know often artists come to town and they think and all your dreams will come true but it certainly doesn't work like that most often [Music] I dunno at the time an Astra was a little bit of a difference game he had a lot of boy bands that were hot so they were trying to you know make artists sort of look like a boy band member they had Keith Urban at the time they had some other things and they wanted him to maybe not have his cowboy hat on they wanted him to be a little more cautious I don't always want boots and jeans and and it was like you know take the hat off and I just wasn't that guy wasn't comfortable doing that stuff and I was dropped from the label [Music] it was hard when you get dropped from a record company they're almost kinda like blacklisted all the other labels are like alright well something's wrong you know he must have got dropped for a reason it was his first introduction to the big game and it really set him back then we got to start over and do it all over again probably the most important factor in success is to be resilient if one recognizes implicitly or explicitly and I've been down before and I've gotten up and that success again isn't a straight line and there are many paths to success it's much easier to move forward having now faced his first major setback in his career Jason would have to decide if he was gonna keep fighting for his shot or pack it in and go home you're now 23 you had a big time shot and it seems to disappear on you then what we were just trying to get another deal my job was it keep him as busy as I can keep him around town anything to keep his attitude in the right place so I booked him down at the wild horse every Monday night at 6 o'clock I kept his band in rehearsals every week and I kept him writing but then in 2002 warner/chappell sold so I got let go [Music] and that's where the dark times hit I would buy him gift cards so he could go eat we were playing showcase after showcase trying to get these labels to come and you could have all these labels telling us they would be there yeah we're coming we're interested we'll come see the show nobody would come he came home one time and so many people were closing the doors in his face and he said mama he said I think I'm gonna give it up he actually called me I said I'm about ready to come back home I'm about ready to give up he somebody need you to you know help me out and he'd made another call to another buddy of ours and told him the same thing he was working at a factory in in Georgia it's like one of the better paying jobs you know back then and I said I'm moving back home I got a got a couple things I got to finish up here but like I need I need a job but I had a couple more shows that I had to do in Nashville and one of them was a showcase and I started playing and played so I was yelling and screaming and like it wasn't the last time and sure enough Broken Bow Records was at the showcase that night they weren't a big player in town but they were getting songs played on the radio and my theme was if you can get my songs played on the radio I'll do the rest of it and walk backstage and the head of the record label says welcome to Broken Bow records [Music] like the way that sounds [Music] Jamie Jackson he's jacking up his Bob the first single came out April it moved five first time I heard it on the radio was going over to my friends house to play playstation grab a six-pack of beer and I was headed to his house and I was that cranked it up [Music] we were headed to the beach and heard hicktown on the radio and I was like that's pretty cool that's when it kind of set in like he didn't have to come back I was in the car and to be honest with you I couldn't tell you the words as I cried the whole way through I was running music in town at Country Music Television at CMT and Jason's music video for hick town came across my desk and if you look at the video sort of grabbed the essence of our audience people forget about small-town America the first thing I saw the first festival he played in the crowd there would be lines waiting to meet him that's what he is his music is small-town America it's red dirt it's working-class its day-to-day people that was really kind of what got my career off and running and got us out there and I mean for about five six years I mean we went out and played over 200 shows a year in 2005 with that single Jason Aldean burst onto the scene and introduced the world to a whole new sound of country music Jason started writing his own material and he still does but he's also become expert at finding good songs along with Michael Knox together they have kind of golden set of ears they're able to really find hits hicktown amaryllis sky-y-y or the love I want to be in those are all the songs we were performing for record labels where they said there's no hits but when we sewed more and then we sold more and we were gold by 12 weeks his fans were buying the product because he's one of them and if you go to one his shows and look out in the crowd you go I get it because secret sauce is just being Jason Aldean and a growing up in Georgia I think really had a big effect on what Jason became he still you know the guy wearing jeans and the in the hat and the boots and it's all natural for him it's not a facade it's not something that you know there was a focus group that said oh we think Jason should look more like this because that's only gonna get you so far you might have the one or two hits but you're not gonna have you know 10 20 years of songs and records and selling out stadiums as in any industry those who take risk are often the ones who shine and it would be Jason's willingness to take risks and challenge expectations of country music that would lead to his next big hit [Music] Jason at that time he was like oh we can go another step the record label still was afraid of it people were very afraid of it you know because it's a rap song back in the day Pop's Palmer's place to go load the truck up hit the dirt road jump - baba spread the word like many people hated dirt road anthem country purists thought it was you know is the the musical equivalent of the devil I knew Brantley Gilbert him a coat Ford I knew their version it was a pretty popular underground thing done in Georgia so I brought it up to Jason and I said dude we got to cut this song and nobody really knows this but the take he did is one take it was very very organic and very genuine to him [Music] Jason's decision to record dirt road anthem could have been disastrous but instead he was able to turn it into a monster hit and I think it's important to point out that country music has a very long history with spoken word all the way from Hank Williams to Johnny Cash what some would describe as rap which it may or may not be depending on what what's your ears here we're all sort of like okay I don't know we're definitely stepping out there but every time we've done that he's succeeded and so we've gotten to the point where we know it's like yeah we need to push the envelope his fans expect it from him a little bit coach music fans especially nowadays I think we all kind of grew up listening to lose our V hip-hop rock that's why it wasn't a big stretch for us all the country boys in the southeast are brought up on country music and R&B and rap not like that's any new idea I think generationally those lines get blurred more and more I grew up listening to everything man and if I can figure out how to play a Snoop Dogg song on guitar I would figure it out you know the mean by 2011 Jason had become a platinum-selling artist with four albums under his belt it was then that he got a chance to play in the stadium that he'd worship since childhood when I walked into the stadium he said mama do you remember we used to not even be able to afford a ticket to come here and I said I do remember suck it up it was just an emotional time for the two of us for him to be able to play in the big stadiums you know as much as he loved ball I was just so overwhelmed with all of it I don't think Jason ever thought things were gonna get as big as they have after nearly 15 years of touring and thousands of sold-out shows Jason encountered the unthinkable a horrific event that challenges own ideology as well as his very will to perform [Music] [Music] [Music] it was the worst night of my life my wife who was seven months pregnant at the time was at the show and I was separated from her so trying to find her and just getting her and the baby somewhere where they were safe and then you just you know you have a lot of different emotions going on and just you know just heartbroken for her families as soon as it happened we went back to the hospital we visited with the victims you know after that looks like a week later you're expected to jump back onstage and act like nothing happened and it was is rough you know I was rough the first couple shows we think about the 58 people that will all settle out and everybody else was injured in that thing and everybody who just was there because even though people may not have physical scars it was uh it's gonna be a mental thing for a lot of people for a long time didn't make you afraid you - it doesn't make me afraid to tour it makes me very much aware of my surroundings now you know it's the difference in getting on stage not having a care in the world and doing my thing now what you get on stage and you're you know you're to look at it's an experience that you just never forget [Music] tragic circumstances are fear-inducing stressful but the effect doesn't have to be all negative you know there's a way that these sorts of circumstances lead us to to pay a little more attention than we otherwise might there are some people who don't come alive until after they've had a heart attack you know they finally feel mortal so do Jason this may do you think any differently about guns I definitely think some changes need to be made I mean I'm I'm a gun owner and and I'm you know fine with going in and doing a background check and me having to wait for 30 days to get a good I'm perfectly fine with that but I'm not gonna sit here and go I think anybody should have guns you know because at that point the people that don't need to have them are still gonna find a way to get them and the people that need to protect themselves can't get it so that's not the answer I just know that whatever is happening now is flawed and not working divided but it's been really cool to see all the all the support all the love and support that that's been going on over the last 10 days or so because of what happened in Las Vegas and I just feel like that we could do on a daily basis man the world would be a lot better place I want this to not be something that's gonna be a downer for the rest of the night I want this to be I want to play the show for you guys that the people in Las Vegas came to see if they get a chance to [Applause] [Music] through all the adversity fame and tragedy Jason is persevered and remains the same guy he was when he first picked up the guitar he's still playing music his way moving the genre and himself forward a life short man don't live in fear that night it's just something I'll always remember but it won't keep me from doing what I do no matter what happens you know from here on out always go out and play my shows and the best thing to do is just get through it play it and roll the dice lucky for me I'm I'm all about gambling so I'm a gambler I'll take it any day [Music] as a person I would hang out with him I wish I could but but as a person though he seems real down-to-earth he's done dirt you don't there's not many of them you know country that's what we love about who's got his own style man just a new outlaw fashion it's not rock and roll check work hard for what we got [Music]

Channel: The Carlos Watson Show

Views: 41,090

Rating: 4.9278197 out of 5

Keywords: OZY, news, current events, OZY Media, jason aldean, country, music, PBS, Las Vegas, Shooting, Rock, Georgia, Braves, America, USA, politics, controversy, trends, culture, diversity, carlos watson, provocative, thought, Bold, curious, mindset, global, perspectives, change generation, media, entertainment, tv, podcasts, festivals, silicon valley, digital news, Ozymandias, wild, Nashville

Id: klEVovSMDSY

Length: 25min 30sec (1530 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2018