EPISODE 1: TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN | How the writers of the song ignited an American movement.
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This song means something. You're doing something that is right. You're standing up for what you believe in. It's about community and looking out for the other person. And, you know, I think we all have that in our values and that's kind of what made the song special to us. There's not a population limit on what a small town is. It's the value of small town. You and I were talking about this. It's the value of that. And that's what we were trying to convey, right?

We are the songwriters of Try That in a Small Town by the one and only Jason Aldean. Right here we have the writers, Kelly Lovelace, bass player for Jason Aldean, Tully Kennedy, the guitar player for Jason Aldean, Kurt Allison in the house. And the one and only Neil Thrasher. Did I not introduce myself? I don't think you did. That's how humble you are. It's not important. I'm not important. That's how humble you are. We've got a lot of ground to cover. I know that.

Because we were talking just a little bit ago. I mean, we're going to talk about how the song was created. We're going to talk about how Jason Aldean heard it to begin with. Where was that? What did he think when he first heard it?

We're going to talk about the bet that we had for $1,000 that it would never see the light of day. I won. He did win, and that's why soon on the podcast episode. Well, it was bad, but there were things happening, you know, because you got a gun reference in there, you know, for sometimes people, you know, playing it safe and things like that. They're kind of worried about that, you know, putting songs out. I'll go back to your question.

What's that? Safe space. Freaking safe. Gun hater, whatever. We're going to cover all that. We're going to end up getting tattoos probably on a podcast show. Not sure about Kurt yet. I'm sure. We'll get him. No, we'll get him. I'm sure about it. His body is his temple. Al Dean's supposed to design the tattoos for us. It's my understanding he's going to design the tattoos that we're going to get.

It's the $1,000 that you owe me is going to go towards. Because I still have that. Yes. I've borrowed it since then. The $1,000 goes to your tattoo or to the fund? It goes to everybody's. Everybody's tattoos. I can't imagine. I don't want to be losing out. What the hell would a $1,000 tattoo look like? Big one. You tell me.

Well, you tell us, Tully. The full bat tattoo. You're very experienced in the tattoo world. How much do they cost? I mean, a good-sized Try That in a Small Town tattoo, we're probably looking at $200 a piece. That's not bad. Okay. We have to talk Kurt into getting it. We'll figure it out. Let's talk about where the song Try That in a Small Town originated, where the idea came from that started all of this mess that...

We love that we're in. We have Kelly to thank, right? Yes, we do. Well, I'll give you that story. It was actually a day much like today, except completely different. Anyway, it was actually a beautiful day. And I was living in Franklin, Tennessee, and I was just doing my little...

A little prayer walk outside before my workout and everything. And I know that you've referred to it as a power walk, you know, many times. And I've had to stress to you that I wasn't outside, you know, with my three-pounders, you know, going like that. Not that there's anything wrong with that. What do you wear during your power walk? Normal shirts and a, you know, Mendelbaum, you know, tank top. Yeah, of course. Knew that. Of course it was. Just right down to that little patch of, you know. Anyway.

So anyway, I was out there, and I was having a great day. I prayed. I just talked to my risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I was in a great place. Sun was out. Feeling wonderful and everything. And I got done and just thinking about the day. And it was a Tuesday because Neil and I write on Tuesdays. And so I was just thinking. And then I started thinking about the montage, the news I was watching before I came down there.

And those images started flashing in my head, and they just did, they mashed up a lot of the violence in the streets in some of the cities. I'm not even sure what city it was, but it was just a little lady walking down the sidewalk with her mask on. A stranger just comes up, just flat on, hits her square in the face, and she's out.

and she's just passed out. Then they go to the next frame, and you have this other guy walking down a sidewalk in some other city. A guy comes up behind him, complete stranger, full-on hip turn, aluminum bat in the back of the head, and he's out.

And so I just started thinking about all that, you know, and thought, man, you got to give us a chance. I mean, why do people just come up and just do that to people? And I just started getting madder and madder and madder, keeping in mind that I just prayed in a great place, you know, Jesus, forgive me for my sins. Thank you, Lord. And then all of a sudden, I'm just so mad and just a thought came to my head in that kind of a little small moment of rage, you know, it was like, well, try that in a small town.

And I started walking a little faster. Did you say it or did you think that? Well, you're talking in your own head. So in my head, I said it. But no, I'm not talking out loud. But in my head, I got that. And then I thought...

Uh-oh. Okay, that's pretty good, you know. So I called Neil, and again, it was a beautiful day, and we do enjoy to play some golf. Oh, I had my golf clothes on. Yeah. We ride a lot more when it's rainy, but it was kind of, you know, like Joe Nichols said, sunny in 75, so I knew the idea. It had to be pretty good, but I called Neil, and he said, it's okay, Lo. He goes, looks like it's a good day to play some golf. Yeah.

I said, I don't know. I said, so we might all do something else. He said, what do you got? And then I told, I told him the story and he goes, damn it, Kalo, come on over. And then you can take it. You can take it from there. When you said the title, I was like, I was really like, oh crap. How there's, how are we going to write this? There's only one way to write this. And, and when you got there, I was like, uh,

99.9% of the writers in town would never even chase this title. Yeah. It would never even go there once they heard it because there's only one way to write it. And then I got to thinking to myself, I'm like,

There's only one artist on the planet that would ever even say this. Yeah, which is generally why most people wouldn't write it, because you want the most amount of pitches possible. Right. As songwriters, your job is to make something palatable for everyone. Yes. And to your point, there's only one artist. I mean, I didn't see...

At first, you question yourself. We don't need to write that because nobody's going to record it. It would be too controversial. Nobody wants to talk about guns and all that other stuff. But I knew that if there was one artist on the planet that would, it would be Jason. And when he came over...

He was telling me about the story in his power walk in his tights. I didn't have tights on. I love a guy. And he was talking about somebody sucker punching that woman on the sidewalk, and I was like, that's the first line of the song, man. That's the first line. I was like, we need to be as literal as possible with this song. Yeah. So it went from sucker punch somebody on the sidewalk, carjacking a lady, just kind of went on from there.

about the things that you see that happen in big cities all the time. We see it on the news all the time. And I'm like, that shit would never...

Right. Go down in a small thing. So even as you're coming up with the first couple of lines and the idea, like you said, are you finding yourself trying to go, oh, I don't know if we should say that? No, no, not never did. Not on this one. Like in generally and most any other song content that you would. But in this particular one, you know, for really the first time, you know, you don't get to you don't get to say a lot as a conservative. You get to hear a lot. You don't get to say a lot.

And so for us, in that moment, it was like, we just want to say this. And it's just what's happening. That's right. That's all it is. We're not making anything up. It was kind of freeing because it was like, man, we get to say whatever we want to in this song.

that's been controversial. So you've got a couple lines down. You've got the idea. Yeah, and I'm, you know, me and K-Lo are, and by the way, Kelly Loveless, we call him K-Lo for short. And we're just tinkering around a little bit. And I told him, I go, man, I said, we've got to call Tully and Kirk.

It's like, I got to get this, number one, I got to get this chord structure right and get the melodies, you know, where it needs to be. And if anybody knows what Jason loves, it's Tully and Kurt. Yeah, and I'd never written with either one of them or met them and all just heard so much about them. I was like, let's do it. We were always talking about a country boy can survive and how, you know, we've always wanted one, but you can't really sit down. Like me and Kurt talked about it.

This is months before this, right? You can't sit down and try to write it. No, it can't be contrived. It just can't be contrived. And we've talked about it, and Jace is like, we should do this. And they're like, I don't know if we ever sat down, Kurt, and tried outside of this. I don't think we ever did. And I'll never forget, Neil called up and goes, hey, me and Kelly are working on something. Let me send you a little idea. And I listened to it. It was like a voice memo, 20 seconds, 30, whatever it was. I recorded it on my phone. And I called him up and said, this is...

is exactly what we've been wanting. And I got really fired up. I called Kurt. I'm like, man, we are on it. It is happening. And it was – we just knew that that's what we wanted. That's what we needed. And the only person that was going to say it was our boy, Jason Aldean. So, you know, got to work on that. That's awesome. Yeah, and just going back and forth and hearing the track and bouncing –

and lines back and forth and knowing that, you know, Neil, you know, having that voice that Aldean loves, you know, it's just, we get that lyric right, get that track right, and then you put Neil on it, you know, it's going to get the best listen possible.

So we were pumped the whole time. Because even hearing from you guys, and I'm thinking, I'm telling my wife and everything, and said, yeah, it seems like Aldean's into it. And the guys are saying, so you're getting all pumped and excited. And then at the same time, you're thinking, well, what if he doesn't do it? So you go back and forth. There was always that chance that he wouldn't do it. Or he would record it. But it would just be – he would find –

somebody would talk him out of putting it. See, I didn't think that I, I felt like once we had it and sent it to him, I felt really good. We were really the fun part to go back a little bit was putting all the pieces together and putting it in the Aldine world with, with the way the, the opening riff was with the way the lyrics were with the way the melody was, it kind of took a life of its own as a whole. And, and,

When we sent, when we finished the demo, which in Nashville is basically a work tape version of a song fully produced, I was pretty sure. I would have been really surprised had he not liked it. And he really did. It was, I'll never forget, we sent it to him and in, what, five minutes hit back and was like, you know.

This is it. Really? What we've been waiting for. Yeah. You know? Yeah. He hits you back that quick. Oh, it was very quick. It was however long the song is. I didn't know he hits you back that quick. Yeah, that would have been nice to know during the time as we were worrying night after night. Well, I think Tully and I talked for a while that night, and we called you guys the next day. No, it was, I remember when we got the demo in Patrick's,

the Rastro Neal's cousin, mixed the demo. When we put it on, it hit. And it was like, this transcends. Sometimes you get a song and it doesn't matter. Is it fast? Is it slow? What kind of song? Sometimes it's just a moment. Yeah. And you really, you hope to have a few of those to grab onto in a career. And I remember when he, when he texted us back and he was so excited, I was like, this is going to, this is going to move the needle.

And it was proud. I was proud to be part of it. We were all proud to be part of it. We all were, yeah. Because it was important, you know. You know, A Country Boy Can Survive came out in 1982. And it was a hit song. And I thought that's what we were doing here. And never in a million years thought it would cause the... I think we thought it would cause a little controversy, but not where it went, you know. Yeah, and not the type of controversy. Because like when they did push it back, you know...

And that's when that bet came into play. They'd have an ad date that's going to go to radio and release everything. Yeah, so get into the bet. Terrible bet, by the way. And just the thing of you have it. I mean, we've all had singles pull.

pulled, like during the weekend when it's going for ads the next week. I mean, we had the worst of the worst. You know, they used to say, you know, well, it's not in Walmart, you know, when you get there, then you had to wait all the way till it got there. But that was back in the day. So when did the, I need to know this, when did the bet happen and what was causing you so much? We were on the phone. That was on, no, it was a text thread. Well, it was a lot. There was one phone conversation. The original bet was over the

phone. I remember where I was. I was standing in front of the refrigerator getting ready to open it and my hand, I never opened it. My hand was on the fridge, but I never opened it. And I go, so you think it's not, you don't think he's, this is after he recorded it. Well, yes. And I said, so you don't think he's going to put it out?

You don't think – and I got what he was saying because I know how this industry is. I mean, some people get in your head and start talking, we don't need to do this, we don't need the heat, the possible heat. Let's just come out with something simple and safe and everything. And Kalo goes, I just don't think – yeah, they say they're going to put it out. It's the first single, yeah. But Kalo did not believe it. He said, something's going to happen. It's going to fall through the cracks. Somebody's going to talk him out of putting it out. And I said –

I'll bet you $1,000 he stands his ground and puts it out. And I did say you're on. But the reason I got there was because these things just happen, you know, of what you get. You understand why they push singles back sometimes because there was a shooting in Nashville at a school within a month of that song coming out. And so...

Even though ours was a second verse of reference about a shotgun your granddad gave you about hunting, still it's a gun reference. And so they want to push those things back. But in the negative songwriter mind that's worried about everything, then you start thinking, well, something else will happen. And something else will happen. And this is a way for the label or management or whoever just keep pushing it back, pushing it back until finally they say, hey, Jason, why don't you put out

this over here and then we'll come back to it which means it's never happening so so i got in that little bit of a dark place in my mind and that's where i lost a thousand dollars you lost a foul and kurt will like that's where jason separates himself because he isn't swayed the guy's got a lot of backbone and uh he wanted to put it out because he believed in it and he believed in the message

So nothing pushes him off of that. He was talking about this not long after he got the song from us. This is for a single. Yeah. I mean, I can't even believe it. And you guys, I mean, obviously we know him very well. You guys know him really well now too, man. He stands his ground and it doesn't matter if he's got somebody chirping in his ear, like, Oh, I don't know if we should do this. I mean,

If anything, it makes him stand his ground even firmer. He believes in what he's doing. He knows his fan base. He knows our people, our fans. He knows all of that and what connects and why, but also the message of it because things are out of hand. And, you know, it doesn't matter what side of the fence you're on. It's out of hand. It's out of hand. It's easy to see. So we talk. That's why these conversations are coming up the year before, like,

be nice to write something about this shit, you know, but you can't sit down and say, we're going to, the way it happened. Had to happen organically. Had to happen the way it did. But what a moment. And then, you know, it's a, what happened to it was crazy. A lot of that, you know, the controversy and where they took it. Didn't see that coming. So the song came out, it came out and it's, it's,

Going up the charts about like they all do. Yeah, it's doing its thing. It's moving. It's doing its thing. Like first eight weeks, it was moving nicely. Not a lot of controversy right off the bat. First, it was the video that you guys shot. That was the first thing that happened. Which we shot.

And it was supposed to come out. Yeah. It was supposed to come out with the release. This is what Jason wanted. It was like, Hey, I've got this. I want the song to come out and the video to come out. Bam. Here it is. But it didn't, it didn't, it was delayed. The video was delayed for conveniently. I mean, look again, for obvious reasons. I mean, you know, um, Jason was upset about that. Um,

they kept waiting. Like, when's the video coming? I remember texting, what is going on with the video? Where is it? Meanwhile, the song's doing its thing. It's moving up really kind of under the radar. People are liking it. The fan base is liking it. We cut that video in April, right? Before the song came out. So it was done. It was ready to go. And they kept shifting footage around. And the video did come out. And that's

That's when it lit up. That's when it happened like nothing I've ever been a part of. Never. As far as we all talked and got to know each other so well because you're on the phone all the time and say, hey, can you believe what this song is doing on every media outlet on the hour? Whatever you're watching for a couple weeks.

Try that in small town. Try that in a small town. Try that in a small town. This new song, try that in a small town. Jason Aldean, controversy. It was all over. Everywhere. It was on Twitter. It was on Fox. It was on CNN. It was on MSNBC. It was everywhere. Because they pulled it. CMT added the video and then pulled the video. So...

why would you add it if you're that against it? And, you know, they didn't even release a statement why they pulled it. Jason's vision was always for this to come out, the video and the song together, because you need the visuals with the lyric, music, you need it all together to really have that impact. And so he always knew when the video came out that it was going to stir the nest a little bit. Oh, yeah. And which it did.

But when they pulled the video is when it got really interesting. Beyond anything that I thought. Oh, yeah. I mean. Oh, yeah. Well, they pulled it. We thought it was going to be a domino effect. We thought CMT would pull the video, radio would drop it, and everybody would just move on.

That's kind of like the fear that I had. That's the cancel culture. But it ended up being a Bud Light moment, what CMT had, and then it was on. And it was crazy. So all the hate, it's interesting. We talked about the song was created for the protection of innocent people, which were loving on people, and we don't want that to happen.

you know anywhere whether it's a small town or anywhere because like you know Kurt and I were talking about you know whether you're a small town or not it's it's just it's just the mindset you know it's just it's just a way of life where you know if if you're in a small town you see violence happening like the last thing I want to do is is say oh god I want to record wow I'm

I'm going to get some followers on this. How about freaking jump in there and pull somebody off somebody? Right. In a small town, you're not going to have, you know, you're not going to have a lot of bystanders. Carjacked at one red light in town. The conversation I think we all had with ourselves is like, since when is this, if you see an old lady being carjacked, when is that? Who's for that? Who's for that? Who's for disrespecting the police? And,

That's what we're going on about. Who's for spitting in a cop's face? And you live in America. Who's mad that we are for that? I couldn't really understand that point of view. Who's mad at us? Who's mad? I think they're blinded by the narrative. Yeah. And as soon as they could, somehow, amazingly, they were able to pull the race card out of this. Which actually, I did not see coming. I didn't see that coming. They managed to pull. And then when they got wrong again, which you can't just...

tell people they can and can't do something. I remember hearing, who was it, Shannon Watts, she was a big, she came out big time against it. It's an ode. Who was it? Shannon Watts, an ode to a sundown town. Which is a new term for me. Yeah, yeah. Where did you pull that? Yeah, I remember reading that. Like, I didn't get that. Probably the proudest I've ever been is when we were playing that song live after the controversy hit,

The first night we played it, it was, I just, goosebumps thinking about it. The place went crazy. They had an American flag. Cincinnati, Ohio. Yeah, they held a huge American flag. Start of verse two, Aldine picks up the American flag and slings it over his shoulder. That's badass. Like that guy, like I get emotional talking about it because it's like, he's such like a strong believer in,

And what's right. He didn't, we didn't waver in what he believes in no matter what public pressure. That's why people gravitate to it. Well, he, and he's genuine. It's like, that's the real deal. That's not contrived either. Like, you know, that is who he is.

That first night, I forget how many days it was when this all broke loose. It was probably the weekend. It was probably right after our whatever weekend. So we had four or five days before the next show. We get to Cincinnati, and we weren't quite sure what it was going to be like. So before that song in our set, he starts to talk about it.

And all of a sudden you see everybody's raising their phones. They want to get this moment, right? Yeah. I'm with you. I get goosebumps just talking about this, guys. Every phone is up, recording every word he's singing. We saying, we break into the song, the place erupts. There's American flags everywhere. There's signs. It is like, wow, we really brought people together. It's exactly what the song was supposed to do.

Yeah. Right. You know, which is what it just took a minute. Yeah. It was like, just right. It's just simple. It's, it's, it's right or wrong. You know, if you can find negative in it, then more power to you because you're digging deep. Yeah. You know, but in, in from that moment on the whole summer, whole last tour, I'm talking about, I don't care where we were. We were, we were in California, we were in LA and, and it was one of the biggest reactions, you know, it transcended. Yeah. Yeah. We've talked about this a lot.

We went to some of the bigger markets that you can play, like Boston. Boston was off the hook. Chicago. That's the one I would have thought of. Seattle. Yeah. Irvine County. These are all very blue-leaning cities, and in a way, you think to yourself, okay, what's this going to be like tonight? They're blue-leaning cities because of the leadership, but blue-collar people in those cities. Great point. And that's what people forget. These are hard-working cities.

blue collar people. There's small towns everywhere. North, South, whatever. It doesn't matter. Absolutely. Boston's always been very good to us. We played the Boston Strong event and it was phenomenal and played Fenway a few times and the crowds, for some reason, Boston's always been one of our greatest markets.

It was crazy. And Chicago, who, by the way, didn't play the song. They never added it. They never added it. Stay with number one. Sorry, go ahead. And it did go number one. You know how hard that is to do, by the way? Yeah, I know. When you don't have a major market. In Chicago, that market. It's not supposed to happen. You're not supposed to be able to get it. In radio world, if Chicago doesn't come on, that's really hard to get over.

I don't even know what that place holds, 28,000 or something? Oh, it's huge, yeah. Tinley Park. Yeah. Yeah, it's huge. It's a big one. Can you guys go back just a little bit for me? Because in all the controversy, before y'all played it live, there was all that stuff happening. You know, an ever media outlet talking about it. There's people in the streets and stuff like that.

Everybody's being called horrible things on their social media, especially Tully. They wore you out. I was only called terrible things. Hey, I gained a friend from it. We've got to get into that later. Before you played it and the song was being received by the country music market but hated on the left for sure, was there any thought backstage before you all come out? Did anybody have angst at all? Going out and saying, hey, I wonder if there's going to be any –

crazy person out there do any do anything i mean that's just did it cross your mind at all with all the one of the things that comes in handy with being in a band for over 20 years the same people behind jason and and leading leading the ship it's like we've been through a lot together um a lot of situations tough situations we're all the same it's like we believe in this it's like they're they're nothing negative isn't it's nothing negative gonna happen to us we're doing the right thing

We're doing the right thing. And that's the key, right? And I know you guys feel the same way. We're on the right side here. We're doing the right thing. And, you know, there were a couple that we heard that were going to be protests or whatever, but they actually never really amounted to much. It was more media driven, I think, than it actually was.

I'm going to tell you, I never felt any kind of worry or stress or angst before we went out to play. It was interesting, though, and you guys know this too, even in our circles here in town, after that song blew up. And it's amazing. People that you didn't think would ever leave your side, they splintered, right?

We had people that went to one side or the other as songwriters even. Yeah, that's true. We didn't get a lot of texts. Not a lot of texts on that. All of a sudden, we're being called racists and we're being called all this shit. And it's like, I took offense to it because these are my brothers. You're my brothers. Here's my brother, Jason. We're the opposite of that. You don't know us.

So it's interesting being inside of a situation and watching it turn, how they can turn it. That's a great point. And it's like, you know, so the news cycle in the political world has been a hot button for a while, right? And you commonly hear the words narrative or stuff like that. And you go, okay.

But we were on the inside of this one, right? You could see it. And it was... How it did it, yeah. You could see it. And you could be like, oh my God, they're doing this. I watched a CNN thing with my wife. You know, because when this thing was happening, it was like you wanted to see all the information, right? Oh, yeah. They had this anchor had somebody on and they were saying, Jason Aldean is pro-lynching. He's a racist because of where they shot this video. Unbelievable. The anchor...

damn well knows the history of this courthouse. There's been video shot there. There's been Hallmark movies shot there. They don't interject that. They let this stuff go, right? They want that narrative to be pushed. And we were on the inside watching that happen. It was bizarre. It was bizarre to see it. They can say whatever. They can twist a narrative, say whatever they want to say. And it wasn't shocking to me.

I remember when, when Lana, my wife and I went down to Columbia to eat lunch one day and I was fully expecting to see, you know, people standing out front of the courthouse and somebody trying to spray paint it or something. There was nothing going on. It was, there was nothing. It was a, it was, it was a small town that everybody knew nothing would go on there. We're not going to put up with any funny business. Yeah. And, and, uh,

You couldn't even tell that y'all had shot the video there or that it even made the news. It was just life as usual down there. Yeah. But, guys, I got to tell y'all, this is awesome hearing all of this information for the first time because we, the four of us, the writers of the song, have never had an opportunity to sit down

and actually dissect the whole process and the whole journey of this song. It's funny, right? Yeah, we've never been able to sit down, and then everybody out there listening gets to be a part of it. It's so cool. And how cool is it when you guys came down to Alabama? Yeah. So Neil's home state, right? We did three shows down there in two days. Huge. And we were coming back through Tuscaloosa, and it just so happened Jason Aldean and you guys were –

playing at the amphitheater in Tuscaloosa. So we stopped in. We had our buddy Ben Gallagher with us, and we stopped in. And lo and behold, right before y'all went on stage, you let us know that Jason wanted to bring us out on stage right before y'all did try that. Okay, so how cool is that for you guys? I mean, we're lucky. And we were living it every night. We probably take this for granted that we get to be out there. Yeah.

But he wants to bring you guys out on stage and let everyone know, man, this is where the song originated and come from. Speak to that. Well, yeah, at his show, and like you said, you know, Tully earlier, we've all been blessed as songwriters, and we have some cool relationships, get to do some really cool things, and have friendships, get, you know, get some number one parties, get some cool pluses.

and chicken fingers and beer and stuff, so it's really fun. But nothing...

you know, could surpass, you know, what, what he did for us in that moment, because we've all been very close friends with a few artists for years and been a huge part of their career. I've never, ever been called out on stage at freaking Lake Winnipeg, Pasoka and Chattanooga, you know, at an amphitheater with 20,000 people, which by the way is exactly who Jason is. And so he'll say this, he is,

wants to include everybody in what he's doing. He has included us so much in what he's done. When he's talking in the press, he always says, we, he loves us.

bringing everyone that's involved into it. And he did that for you guys. Yeah. And he did it, he did it for, you know, for us because he didn't do anything for him, for his show. It was completely, it was completely for, for us. And then when he, and I'll let, I'll let Neil talk about it too. When he, when he came out, he goes, he goes, he goes, yeah, look at them. They're real terrifying, aren't they? That's what I remember. That's what I remember from that. Yeah. He,

He probably had second thoughts about bringing me out on stage because I had an Alabama shirt on. He did. He probably didn't like it, but I had to. I mean, we were in T-Town. I had to have my Alabama. I had to have my Crimson. That was a great moment for us to all be together, too. That was fun. We got to hug on stage out there. It was so cool. That was fun. That was a good moment, guys.

And the cool thing, even beyond that, just for us, is that he hung with us backstage before the show, brought us out during the show, and then hung after the show. And I was sitting there talking to him just about regular stuff and said, hey, we're fixed to have a baby and everything. And he goes, shots, shots. That's right. So it was just really cool just hanging out. Oh, you guys just had a baby? Yeah, we just had a baby. Hey, Wade. Hey, Wade. I need a refill. Refill?

But anyway, just the whole thing was surreal. Just very cool for an artist at that level that didn't have to do it. Just very genuine and sincere. And I appreciated it very, very much. Well, this moment meant a lot. The whole thing meant so much to him, though. Like, the way it happened, the people that were involved in it,

And how he is. That's how he is. Right? That's just he wants, it means a lot to him. He wants to share that moment. Yeah. The party at his house meant a lot to all of us and our families. Yeah, and Brittany threw that thing. That was when we, number one, Billboard Hot 100. We threw ourselves the party.

We threw ourselves a party. We threw us... I mean, that's what it was. We did. We did. We threw ourselves a party. In fairness, it wasn't just... That's the way to put it. It wasn't like your regular number one party where it goes top of the charts and billboard or anything like that. It was...

It was bigger than that. None of us, it ever happened. It hadn't happened for Jason Aldean. It hadn't happened for any of us. It was number one in country and also number one in Hot 100, which is a very small list of songs. There's 22 since, I think, 1950 country songs that have been number one in country and Hot 100. Songs like Dolly Parton, 9 to 5.

Big songs. Huge songs. Convoy, you know, BJ Ty, hey, won't you play another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong song? Sing it, baby. Huge songs. Hey, and by the way, you know, so Billboard Hot 100 is based on consumption, right? So it includes charts, downloads, sales. At the time, we were 20-something on the charts, right?

You know how hard it is to be number one Billboard Hot 100? When you're 20-something on the charts? Yeah, that is, for all people who don't know, that's all genres of music. It's everything on the planet. Jason Aldean was number one on the planet. Try that in small town. Let's raise a glass to the fans. Yeah. Because that's how that happens. For sticking with him, yes. You're not going to be told you can't listen to something. You can't watch something. That's...

You know, that's how his fans are. And it just exploded from that point. It became more of a movement, which we always talked about. Hey, did you get any text messages or were you called anything? Were you called racist like we were? So you're setting it up, which is great. Because 90% of the messages we receive on social media were positive.

Maybe more than that. No. Just like for like, thank you. Mine were like most of them. The majority were positive. Maybe 95%. Incredibly positive. Thank you. We back the police. We love our country. All of it. Well, as always. Are you going to read it? So I woke up to this at five in the morning. This guy messaged me. You know, you know.

Pig, you're the worst thing I've ever, you're the worst thing. I hope you die. You're a racist. That kind of stuff. Normal stuff. I delete it. I'm like, okay. I hope you die? Oh, yeah. That part was aggressive. These kept coming in. Five in the morning. And then I get an evening one, too. After the show, I come in and there'd be a little evening one, you know. Great show. I delete that one. So for like a week, five in the morning, six in the morning, nine at night, one in the morning. Then I started saving them.

I started saving them July 27th, actually. 6.20 a.m. I'll read this one. Seemingly for a moron who wrote bullshit violence and right-wing rhetoric, you're kind of a chicken shit because I wouldn't respond to him 30 messages ago. He wrote some very bad things about Jason's wife. One of my favorite ones he said after one of his good job loser racists on your success. My favorite one is this.

This is my favorite. I'm a Buddhist, and I love watching karma happen for morons like you. He sounds like a Buddhist. I'm like, what an angry Buddhist. What an angry little Buddhist. But that's not even the best one. There's a better one. Keep going. Remember when he talks about your name. Oh, yeah. That's the best one. Now, I'm skipping through. MFers like you make me laugh. Sold their soul to evil morons like Aldine. Oh, one of my favorite ones. This is great.

I dare you, MFR, to come to New Jersey and we can show you actual Americans. And then he goes, Tully. What the f*** kind of name is Tully? That's what I wanted to get to. That's the only thing I wanted to get to is that. Well, now. What kind of ridiculous name is Tully? F***ing moron. This guy is angry. He's a Buddhist, though. And then he goes to my parents. Your parents get hit with a stupid stick.

And he goes off my last name, and Kennedy, usually you mourn the Democrats. He goes off on RFK for a little bit. I'm sucking off Aldine. I'd say go to hell, but you're already there. Oh, my God. And then your co-writers are ignoring my text. I did ignore it. Well, yeah, me too. I haven't responded yet. He didn't text me. Give him my number. Loser, racist, loser, racist. What I expected. Now, keep in mind, I'm going, this is...

Every day in July, 5 in the morning, 5.30, ooh, 3.19 p.m., happy hour one. Did you know, in August, I woke up one morning, well, I got a 5.27 a.m. one on August 4th. Love morons like you who are too cowardly to respond. Well, so then I decided, the timeline, 5.27 a.m. came in, 9.16 I respond after cups of coffee on the bus. I decided I was going to do like a little experiment.

And I wanted to see what it would take to disarm someone like this or what makes them tick because it's a lot of hate. It's just something that's a lot, a lot of hate, a lot of hate. And I said, I've got it right here. I said, man, I'm really sorry. You hate me so much. I don't hate you, brother. I don't even know you. I said, I get that. You don't like the song. You made your point.

um but i really wish you all the best i said how can we hate each other when we never when we never met i started to tear up man i can tell you're not from alabama on a serious note like some of that was actually how i was feeling that was like how is this even possible yeah and it's also in this age of social media this is very possible because you're that's a fact um and he responds he says uh

He goes, hate with a question mark. He goes, no, no hate here. I hope you die. He goes, I don't know what that means. You're ridiculous. He goes, to say I don't like a song is an understatement. I hate the song for sure. I hate the rhetoric. I hate dividing people, which we were doing the opposite. But he says, no hate behind it. And he goes, I'm an agent for karma. I'm an agent for karma?

Yeah, that's what he said. And I said, well, you're entitled to your opinion. Wish you nothing but the best. Now, what happened after that was really interesting because he responds to me, he apologizes. Look what a love will do. Well, he apologizes and he goes, I'm sorry. He goes, I'm sorry you had to wake up that every morning is what he said. And next thing you know, we're talking about music.

I said, what kind of music do you like? And I was referencing some stuff like old Steve Earle and stuff and some music he probably didn't think I even liked. And we had a lot of shit in common. Yeah. Talking about music. And before you know it, like that was the end of it. Apologized again. And it was like, what made you tick? Like what made that move? And it really was all kind of experiment and like how really...

We're really not that far apart in a lot of ways. Which is, you know, it's kind of a microcosm for really where we are as a country right now. Not to get too deep, but it's like we get divided into here and here, but really we all kind of want good, right? We all kind of want the same things, but they want us here and here. And when these came in, they were pretty, some of them were pretty threatening. So our security guy did a little...

research the best he could and found out this guy is going through some stuff. You never know what people are going through, but that kind of hate is easy to type, but when you really disarm it,

It's not there. Well, yeah, if you had fueled it, he would have been loving it because he had been all over you back and forth, but you didn't fuel the hate. That's the beauty of this group right here. I would have thrown jet fuel on it. You would have. You are a better man than I am, Tully, because I would have maybe eventually said...

I love you, Roll Tide, at the end, but not really. I would have thrown rocket fuel on that. But, Neil, let him know. But this guy doesn't deserve it, my time. It would have just been fun for me, though. I would have just had fun. But now they're great friends. Hey, Wade, can we bring him on in? Wade, bring him on in. Bring him in. I don't even know if he really listened to what we're saying. So you jump on the hate bandwagon. Yeah. And you're hate, hate, hate. And you're saying things about Jason's wife and your...

calling me a moron and a racist and hope I die. He told me, I had some other guys on there, you know, you know, tell me, I hope, I wish you would have taken a bullet in Vegas. Oh, that's like, how do you even say that? I would never. How do you even say that? So where, where does that go? Like, where do you live with, how do you live with that kind of thought? It's, it's weird. It's like, that's what it came from. It was like, you know what? I'm going to do the opposite, opposite day. And I'm going to,

not do what I usually would do. How did it make you guys feel when there's like a prominent artist coming out against a song? Well, I mean, seriously, it's like, you know... Turn my mic up, please.

I mean, a couple that come to mind were Sheryl Crow and Jason Isabel that came out. It was kind of funny how Jason Isabel and Sheryl Crow, they both had new albums coming out at the time. So what a great opportunity to promote their new music on the backs of our song. So, you know, it's not a surprise. They got to do what they got to do.

I'll tell you what was great, though. Our buddy Jake Owen. Jake Owen. Who's a stand-up guy. And this is interesting, right? When this thing happened, how many people came to the defense of Jason Aldean? Yeah.

Jake Owen? Not enough for my taste. Travis Tritt. I know, dude. There wasn't enough of him. But I'm not sure. Brantley Gilbert did. Who did? Cody Johnson and Brantley Gilbert did. Okay. All because you went on a power walk. It was a prayer walk. It all started with a power walk. Can I say, too, before we go any farther, that is the most American shirt I've seen in a while.

John Rambo. Hey, Mom got me that for Christmas. I love that. Your mom? Yeah, there's a story to it. Okay, give it to us. So Rambo is one of my first movies. I remember that movie. It was a long time ago. Can you watch it 700 times? Well, this movie combined with the fact that I'd blown a whole semester at UTC and I'd wasted my dad's money. I was already wondering what I was going to do. How am I going to tell him because I'd failed out? I went to the first two weeks of class and then I heard in college that

They don't take attendance or anything. I thought, that's great. Yeah, they don't take attendance, so I just won't go. Well, but you fail. I didn't really put that together, but at the same time, I was thinking, I've got to tell him at some point. We watched the movie First Blood. Remember that scene where he's running, he's got the cliffs, and he jumps, and he gives that huge pine tree to

I'm telling how many feet down he goes through all the branches. He gets down to the bottom and he's got this, this huge gas and his ripped bicep. He pulls out his, his, his knife with a compass on it, unscrews it, pulls out a needle and thread and sews his own arm. And I just, I leaned up on my seat and I said, I want to do that. Yeah.

Yeah, I joined the Army the next day. Really? Sure did. Thank you for your service. How long did you last? It was two years. I did my term. Really? Yeah, it was a two-year college plan and all that. Went to Fort Benning. They changed the name now, I guess, but Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia. It was the best thing for me possible. See what you can learn? I needed the military. It's a rectangle table. It was good for me. So we were fortunate enough.

enough to play Pebble Beach, right? Yeah. It's an amazing, have you ever played there? No. I played once. You have? It's last year, yeah. It's amazing. We're on the driving range because God knows we need it. We're hitting and we're kind of looking over and it's like, is that Sylvester Stallone?

It is, right? Yeah. It's Sylvester Stallone hitting right there. He's like, where's my ball? He's going away. Bro, it's Sylvester Stallone hitting right here. Can he swing a club? Not like me. Who can really, though? That's a joke. Good point. Get us back on. No, I've never been a part of any song in my whole career, and I've been doing this for 30 years.

And I've never been a part of a song that was this big. And listen, you've written how many Jason Aldean songs? Do you even know? It's probably like 35, 36. Are you serious? Yeah, something like that. I mean, you've kind of been the voice of, or of voice, of a lot of Jason's big songs. Fly Over States, Tattoos. I mean, you've kind of encompassed. Fly Over States was one of those, too, that was like,

It kind of got political there. I remember playing on Neil's demos in the early 2000s, right? Right. And come full circle and work together in this way. You've been a part of the... We've recorded so many of your songs. This song for me was... It kind of opened up a whole new chapter for me. I was trying to...

Slow down a little bit. All of a sudden, the four of us write this freaking song. And Try That in a Small Town comes out. And now I'm writing for Triple Play. You know, yours and Jason's company. And I'm like, here we go again. It's a whole new chapter in my writing career. And it's all because of the song. The beauty of it is that

You know, to kind of go back, we're songwriters and our job as songwriters is to just kind of make stuff palatable for radio. And you can sometimes get lost in that. This song means something. We all have kids. You're doing something that is right. You're standing up for what you believe in. You're leaving a legacy to me personally.

You know what I mean? This song means something. I think that's kind of why Jason wanted to be a part of it, too. It's like it means something. And it's about community and looking out for the other person. And, you know, we have that as friends. And we, you know, I think we all have that in our values. And that's kind of what made the song special to us. You know, it's cool. I'm from way, you know, it's about me. The Outer Riding Mountain is in New York, way upstate, northeastern New York State.

from a town of foreigner people. You are from the smallest, smallest mountain town. This song is that town. It's hard work and a lot of, you know, poor people, you know, mountain people, hillbillies, if you will, you know, but proud people and also very, you know, they're there for everybody, you know, that's what it meant, meant to me. It was like, you know,

I think we all have that. And it's interesting because I heard some of the argument of Jason's not from a small town, and it's not that. There's not a population limit on what a small town is. It's the value of small town. You and I were talking about this. It's the value of that. And that's what we were trying to convey, right? It's a good example of how if people want to hate something, they're going to crawl inside of it,

And tear it apart. But the stuff, you know, the good stuff always rises. Yeah. You know, I think that people, most people believe like we do. It's like we were talking about earlier, this song and, and, you know, Aldane for recording it, uh, gave millions of people a voice that have been kind of beat down or quietened, you know, because, because the conservative, um,

a lot of small town people, it's not just small town, but like you said, Kurt, it's just that way of living and being brought up and taking care of people, take care of your neighbors. And Christian, Bible believing, those people have been put in this box of, oh, you're narrow-minded because you only think this way. You think of God and you think of church and Jesus. So you're narrow-minded, which is so not true. But

I think because we're programmed to be these nice Christian people, you've been put so far over here that you don't have a voice in the people on the other side. They're very loud, and they've all got microphones. You're right. And finally, because, and thank the Lord, you know, got this idea, and I mean, God put

us together about it because we've all had a lot of special songs together before about love and kids and things like that. Totally different topic. We would have never, like you said, Neil, write a song that has anything to do with anything political. That's not what it was written for to begin with. It was just taking up. We write songs to get them cut. We make a living at this. And chasing a title like Try That in a Small Town is a stretch. Yeah. That is a...

I mean, for us to even chase that title. That's why, you know, this was... He's the only reason we finished the song. This was meant to be. Yes. He's the only reason we finished the song. And have you noticed, you know, since Try That Small Town came out, Jason Aldean continued, like you guys have known him forever, and I don't know him as well, getting to know him better, but continued to stand his ground consistently.

a lot of artists not saying, I mean, who knows probably most would have caved when people, the label keeps coming or somebody keeps coming to say, Hey, we're getting a lot of pushback. That's the formula. They would have, they would have caved and put it out something safer. It'd have been a hit too. Yep. And the artist is still doing great. That's the formula. Oh, there's pushback. Apologize. And anybody and everybody else, every, and I'll go, I will say this right now.

No one puts that style except Jason. Nobody does it. No one has the stones to do it. It's just because that's how he is. That's how he's got where he is. He believed in it that much. To me, it's opened up

other songs and other artists and a lot of other people are all of a sudden being allowed to be bold and come out with their stuff. They're starting to. They're starting to loosen up a little bit. Which is really cool because I kind of think back to that moment and with Jason standing his ground and everything, other people do too.

So it's not just one person might start it, but then other people come along too, and then we all become stronger. The main thing is we want to thank everybody out there, all the fans for believing in this song. We're talking about getting this podcast together. None of us ever did.

done one. We might have, you know, we've been on a couple podcasts and talk about songwriting and things like that and, you know, just getting this together because we realized that this first episode is about telling the story of the song. It's why it happened. But it

It's a long journey, right? It's a long journey. Yeah, and now it's a movement. I mean, our goal is to take this and just do so much good with it and to have other people realize over the course of time that even though it –

other people made it divisive. It is so far from the truth. And we just want to continue to have that positive message, uh, and just helping people, just helping your neighbor, you know, period. Um, that's just what we want to do. So we're just, we're just thankful to be here and to do this. And, and for us all be blessed with the relationships and being able to do this and give back. We know what I love that we did, uh, not to keep going, but, um,

After the controversy, a lot of news outlets reached out to all of us individually. And we all just said, you know what? Let Jason take the lead on this. And that's why it's so good to talk about it now. We never talked about it. No, we haven't. We never really talked about it. And it's a great story. And a summer that we'll never forget. Oh, my God. We will never forget that. We will never forget that. There was moments that...

I think about every day. Absolutely. I will tell you, it was very difficult when we got the call to Neil and I to go on Jesse Waters' show. Neil was like, we're going. I said, we can't. He said, we're going. They're sending a jet. I said, no, I know. I said, we can't. And they said, are they having food on it? Are they bringing us food?

In-N-Out burgers. We got a lot of, I mean, I got a lot of texts from different news outlets wanting a statement. Like Tully said, and you said, we all did. And going back to the point that you made, we've never talked about this. And that's kind of what we want to bring everybody on the journey of this and

our point of view and it's going to expand. Oh, we're going to have guests. We've got a lot of great guests. We've already got a couple special guests. Oh, we have some guests coming on. How's it going? Hey, you working on that? Yeah.

We have guests, right? Got guests. Do we have Aldane lockdown? All right. We want to make sure we thank you guys for listening. Like, subscribe. That's what we need. That's what all the YouTubers say, right? They say like and subscribe. That's really cool. Leave a review. Seriously, we need all of your input. We want to interact with you guys and we just appreciate you for listening.