Press Conference: BRAD PAISLEY, C2C Country 2 Country 2017, London, The O2

I was lucky enough to spend some time in the Press Room at C2C Country 2 Country 2017 getting to chat with some of the biggest artists along with other members of the press. Read on for questions and answers from Brad Paisley’s Press Conference, including sneak peeks of his upcoming album, working with Timbaland, and the advice he’d give to up-and-coming artists.

Q: You’ve come a long way in your career - how do you feel now knowing that you’ve come such a long way?

A: I’m way beyond anything I envisioned as a kid. I think that anyone who ever walks onto a stage, whether that’s at a vocal picnic or opening for someone or anything, thinks and dreams of something like this. My goal really was very simply to have a hit song or two and a tour bus. That’s what I wanted, very simply, enough hits to drive around the country with a band, people show up and they know the words. Really the bus was the big thing. That’s a great way of going in America, we don’t do that as much here with buses. I shot right past that, and I’m very lucky to be able to create new goals and achieve them from time to time.

Q: Have you ever had the chance to play live on stage with Stuart Smith or Albert Lee?

A: I’ve gotten to play with Albert several times – we’re good friends. He’s actually here in London right now but can’t make it, but we invited him tonight to play. Stuart Smith I know, but I haven’t played with. Albert and I have done a lot of stuff together – we collaborated on a song on my acoustic album called Clusterpluck – careful with how you say that.

Q: Little Moment, You Didn’t Have to Be, and now Today. What gems have you got on the upcoming album Love and War?

A: Thanks for asking about the new album. Our goal was to have that out this week, but we didn’t make it. I started making the album you’re going to get in April in September 2015. The very first recording session was with Mick Jagger – Mick and I have become good friends so I told him we need to get together and write, you can stay in my house and no one will know you’re there, other than my whole family who show up then! We ended up writing a bunch, and my idea was to collaborate with some of these people I’ve gotten to get to know over the years and see what happens when these strange worlds collide.

The goal was to get it out in early 2016, so you can see how badly I did at achieving that goal! But the true reason it’s not out yet is because I wanted it exactly as I’d envisioned it, and in the process, I had the idea to collaborate with a few others – John Fogarty and I are good friends and I had an idea for a song that I wanted to write with him so he came to the farm, spent three days. Three days is about the amount of time you need – the first days is when you eat food and chill, the second day is when you get something done, and the third day you cut it. So he did the three day thing with the idea that I had with him, which when you hear it, is one of the more important things I’ve tried to do in a song – it’s the album title, Love and War.

The next person to come in was Timbaland, and there’s two songs on there that we collaborated on. Bill Anderson came out and did some songs. The strangest collaboration I’ve got on the album is with Johnny Cash, and how we did that is his son John Carter, has had this idea for a while for people to finish his fathers songs, and he came to me and said I’ve got a couple of songs, one of them’s a gem and I think you can do something with it. And then there are other songs on there that are just me, but again I try to say things that I haven’t said before, and I think that’s the beauty of country music, and why it works in England is that when you say something that you believe in real life and try to tell the story about it, it doesn’t matter what country you’re in.

Q: Grey Goose Chase sounds like some kind of folk song.

A: It’s kind of like that. That’s one of the songs I did with Timbaland and that’s the ‘guitar song’ on there.

Q: Can you tell us a little about Timbaland?

A: I don’t know how to describe him. He’s an R&B, pop, rap producer; he’s never done country before. When we got together, he said where our worlds collide the best is bluegrass – those beats where the mandolin’s doing something, the banjo’s doing something – and that’s where we went. The country stuff on the record is nothing like the usual.

Q: Dying To See Her sounds like a country song.

A: Yeah, that’s a country song. I am as proud of that as anything I’ve ever written. I called Bill and said I’ve been saving an idea for you. He’s 80 years old, and the greatest living country songwriter, without a doubt.

Q: So Love and War – that’s an arresting cover with your hat flying off your head.

A: We did that in an anti-gravity chamber. No, I’m just kidding, but I did jump for it.

Q: Something that strikes me about C2C is the opportunity it gives to new artists as well as excellent established artists, who like yourself, have had so much success. What advice would you give to those artists who are up-and-coming?

A: I think that’s it’s all about the song in the end. I’ve always thought that anybody who had the songs that I had, the catalogue that I had, would be as big or bigger a star as me, I just happened to either write them or find them. I think that you can never let yourself think that it’s about you – rarely is it. Elvis might have been a star, but the rest of us need songs. It’s really important that you figure out who you are song-wise and then you’ll go as far as you can.

Q: What’s the most embarrassing record you own?

A: There’s a thing called – this is going to sound incredibly vulgar, but hey, it’s on iTunes – it’s called The Singing Butts, and it’s songs done sounding like flatulence. Everything from Happy Birthday to Auld Lang Syne. It’s worth checking out.

Q: What UK artists do you think are good?

A: I’m a big fan of UK music – I like everything from Coldplay to some more obscure bands like Sand and Snow. I like Ed Sheeran. Everything from The Rolling Stones to The Beatles – the classic stuff, Pink Floyd. The UK is so beyond what percentage you should have of influential artists, because population wise you’ve got so many in comparison! It’s not fair, honestly, that some of the greatest artists of all time come from this country.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the experience of making Forever Country?

A: Forever Country was the brainchild of a couple of songwriters, one of them being Shane McAnally, who’s brilliant; and the CMA had this idea for 50 years to put a lot of us together and mash-up a couple of these songs. In theory that shouldn’t work – it should be like salad and jello, but it was basically the greatest casserole you could ever expect. It’s testimonial to how brilliant those writers were in getting the right mash-up. We went in the studio, Carrie and I, and then started down the path of getting everybody on board. Everyone did it on their own time and then they did a bunch of green-screen stuff so it looks like we’re all in the same room, but thankfully we didn’t have to see each other. I’m hoping we can do the award show that way.

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