Bud & Broadway Morning Show (May 19th 2016)
Blake Shelton
[edited version]
You know, I’ve known you for a long time and I think people often refer to you as sort of irreverent and unfiltered. But I don’t know that ‘vulnerable’ is a word that’s usually associated with your music. I’m wondering, I mean, this is an album that I think people are really scrutinizing and looking to see, y’know, what’s in Blake Shelton’s head, his heart, his mind. Is that something that you’re having to get used to yourself?
Well, I definitely know that this record’s under a microscope and, you know, that’s a good thing at the end of the day, I guess. But you can’t help get beat up a little bit when you’re under the microscope like I am. And by the way, I don’t know why that is. I can’t think of a more boring human being on the planet than me. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe that’s what’s interesting. Like, ‘Wow, what a slug that guy is. We’ve got to figure out what’s wrong with him’, you know. But anyway, and so, yeah, I think it’s probably hard to go there a little bit. I mean, cos the album - I tried to be as honest as I could be and still have good, you know, what I consider to be great songs at the same time, y’know. There’s a fine line there, y’know, because you want everybody to be able to relate to your music and put it in their own lives somehow to be able to relate to it. And so I couldn’t, you know, make it 100% that personal, y’know. But I definitely wanted it be a reflection of my last year, and I was able to get that done. And so when the album comes out and the bloggers get their hands on it, they’re gonna, you know, beat the hell out of me like they always do. I’m used to that so.
I wanted to ask you, it seems like country and other genres are colliding more than ever these days. Jennifer Nettles, she has a duet with Jennifer Lopez on her album. Brad Paisley just released a single with Demi Lovato. And now you were able to introduce Gwen Stefani to the country music conversation. Can you talk about being able to introduce her to your true passion, which is country music, on Go Ahead And Break My Heart?
Yeah. Uh, you know, it’s interesting because Gwen never, never thought she would be on a country album at all. I think she had dreamed of that before, you know, because she’s a country music fan, but just, you know, she knows that it’s just not where she belongs. But when we wrote this song together, uh, it’s just so, it’s from the heart, you know. And I told Gwen, I said to her, ‘That’s what country music is. It’s songs, it’s music, that are from the heart, that people have experienced or they can relate to. And it’s not about, you know, where you’re from or, you know, what your hobbies are. It’s about just being honest and talking about real life’, you know, and so she’s sooo excited to see it bein’ received the way it is.
And, you know, I had kinda hoped that people would love the song, but I didn’t, I never saw this kind of reaction, you know, in the future, when you’re thinking about what happened with it when we performed it that night and it became available on iTunes, you know, for downloads or whatever. It just exploded and, uh, so she’s so excited, you know. She’ll probably never, that’ll probably be the one and done for her as far as country music goes, but you would never meet or find out anybody more excited or proud to be, to have a moment in country music. Because it’s just such a longshot for her so she’s pumped about it, you know.