Photo courtesy of Brian Higbee.
This summer, Jason Aldean is doing what he’s done nearly every year around this time since he arrived on the country music scene in 2005. He’s going on tour, headlining amphitheater shows across the country.
To hear him tell it, getting out on the road and onto concert stages never gets old.
“That’s always kind of been my favorite part, the live touring and being on the road and playing music,” Aldean said in a phone interview. “I’m not really a studio rat guy. I’m not a guy that just loves going in the studio and stays in there all the time. When we go cut an album, I want to get in there, get it done, knock it out and then I want to go tour.”
That’s not to say Aldean has been neglecting the music-making side of his career. In fact, he’s been particularly prolific over the past five-plus years, releasing more than 70 songs over the course of five albums – the most recent of which was last year’s “Highway Desperado.”
Beyond being efficient with his time in the studio, one thing that probably has helped enable Aldean to release so much music lately is he’s relied on outside songwriters for nearly all of his most recent material – which means Aldean hasn’t had to set aside time for songwriting.
That, however, changed somewhat with “Highway Desperado,” as Aldean co-wrote three of the album’s songs.
“I got back in the writer’s chair for this album,” Aldean said. “It still is a part of what I do. I can do it. I don’t love it, and I don’t know how to say it. Sitting in a room for me for hours at a time trying to come up with something is torture. I’m just not good at that. I don’t like to feel like I’m closed in in an office. I have to kind of approach it in a different way. So for this album, I kind of wanted to get back into that a little bit and I found a way that kind of works for me a little bit.”
Aldean credited two of his band members, Kurt Allison (guitar) and Tully Kennedy (bass), with spurring him to write with them for “Highway Desperado,” and the two band members have credits on the majority of the songs on the album, including its controversial lead single, “Try That in a Small Town.”
The song decries senseless big-city crime, but was widely criticized as an anti-Black Lives Matter song that celebrates a brand of vigilante justice where townspeople take care of their own.
Aldean has defended “Try That in a Small Town,” saying in a statement the song wasn’t meant to deal with race and was a tribute to communities that come together to support each other in times of trouble. Aldean also commented on the song in this interview.
“‘Try That in a Small Town,” it’s just one of those things that I felt like was something I wanted to say. Like most everybody, I watch the news every night and see what’s going on in our world, and it’s crazy and insane, and it’s just not something I can still wrap my head around,” Aldean said. “You get a song like this that comes along and it says everything you want to say, and it’s like man, I want to cut that and I want to get it out as soon as possible.”
The fuss over “Try That in a Small Town” has eased now, but despite that, it became Aldean’s first song to top “Billboard” magazine’s all-genre Hot 100 singles chart. It also topped the country singles chart.
Having a song top the country charts has become a regular occurrence for Aldean, who splashed onto the scene with a 2005 self-titled debut album that turned out a No. 1 single, “Why,” and two top 10 songs, “Hicktown” and “Amarillo Sky.” He’s gone on to pile up nearly 30 No. 1 songs over his career.
Aldean views “Highway Desperado” as traveling down a similar musical path as his other albums, with several musical genres working their way into a mix of hefty rock-tinged songs and sturdy, melodic ballads.
“I think at this point, when you listen to any of the albums I’ve done, my sound and what I do is just what I do,” he said. “There’s going to be some rock and roll influence in there, obviously a lot of country music influence, some pop and hip-hop-type stuff. It’s what I’ve done kind of my whole career.”
Aldean can’t fit all of his hits into his shows anymore, but he puts a good deal of effort into crafting a crowd-pleasing selection of songs.
“Every year, I really sit down and try to come up with a set list that I feel like is cool, that people are going to get their money’s worth when they come to a show and try to figure out a way to play some of the things that everybody knows from year’s past, and also some songs that we’ve done recently,” he said. “It’s a little tricky sometimes.”
Jason Aldean performs at Darien Lake Amphitheater on Thursday, August 1 at 7:30 p.m.
