Country Countdown USA (Dec. 5th 2015)
Blake Anxious to “Lay It Out There”
There has been a media frenzy around Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert since the two announced their divorce last spring. For the most part, neither of them have said much about the split. But he told Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton that he’s anxious to talk about everything that happened, and he says his next album will answer a lot of questions:
“The thing I’m focused on, that I’ve been thinking about since the beginning of the year is this next studio album. That’s all I care about, and we already cut a lot of stuff. If I got hit by a truck, the label would have enough for a new album.”
Have you written much for this? “I have, I’ve written more than I’ve written in 15 years, for obvious reasons, all the awful things that have happened in my personal life, but the way the year ended is also the greatest of my life.”
What made it great? “I better not talk about that just yet, but sometimes you don’t know who’s in your life that can save you. I found some people in my life that have changed my life forever. Some has been bad and some that’s been pretty good. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, and that’s put all I’ve gone through and put it into music, and I never felt more connected to a record before. When people hear this record, they may not know what happened to me, but they’re gonna know how I felt about it. And that’s exciting for me, to just lay it out there for people.”
When can we expect the new music? “I hope to have a new single out in January. I want to get it out there. It’s driving me nuts to not be already into that project because it’s all I’m thinking about.”
And when will the album out? “I hope the album can come out in May, and people can be knowing, if they’re interested, what I’ve been going through, the good and bad.”
Inside Story Of Blake’s Hit Sangria
Blake Shelton’s latest album “Reloaded: 20 #1 Hits,” begins with his latest chart-topper, “Sangria.” The song has an interesting story of how it found its way to Blake.
One of the writers is Trevor Rosen of the band Old Dominion. He gave us some of the inside story behind the song: “The funny thing a lot of people don’t know is Kenny Chesney recorded it first, but it didn’t make the album. When that happens, it can be deflating, but it turns out it was the best thing for it. Because it might not have been a single for Kenny, but it makes it on the Blake album, and it’s a #1 song!”
When Blake co-hosted Country Countdown USA, he told Lon Helton, “That’s crazy, I did not know that. You know, sometimes people aren’t as honest with you until after the fact. They say, ‘When you released it, I thought it was weird, but it grew on me.’ I’ve learned more about that song since it became a big record. I just loved it because it is an odd song, haunting but sexy. It seems like there’s a template for what’s on the radio. That’s OK, but I don’t want to blend into that. So when a song like Sangria is on my record, I want to get it out to radio, because I want to stand out. I don’t want to blend in, and it definitely doesn’t blend in.”
So that’s what attracted you to it? “Yeah I’ll never forget, I was at my producer’s house, on his deck, and he was smoking his pipe, and he says, ‘Listen to this song,’ and we listened to it three times, and realized we have to do it. We couldn’t stop thinking about the song. It worked out. Obviously it worked out.”
So back to Chesney, would you have done it had you known he passed on it? “Artists are weird about that. If it’s so good, why didn’t Kenny put it on his record? What’s wrong with this song? We’re weird about that. I might not have recorded it if I’d known that earlier.”
Blake Shelton In Ridiculous Six
That’s Blake Shelton behind that mustache playing Wyatt Earp in the new movie “Ridiculous Six.” The new Netflix movie stars Adam Sandler, who contacted Blake for the role. Blake talked about it with Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton:
“I got this call from my agent a year ago, saying ‘Is it OK if we give Adam Sandler your phone number?’ Is this a joke? Of course you can! ‘He’s got this movie and he wants you to be in his movie, but he wants to talk to you about it.’ So they send me the script, and I play Wyatt Earp. And I wanted to know who else was in the movie, and it’s Adam and Luke Wilson, Nick Nolte, David Spade, Rob Schneider, John Lovitz, So I said yes to it. I’m in a small scene, and it’s a fun part. But just to do that, I never thought I’d be acting, but it’s so much fun. It’s a Netflix thing, he did a deal with them.”
Where did you shoot it? “We shot it in Santa Fe. And if artists think shooting a video is a pain in the ass, they ought to do a movie. For a ten minute scene, it took two weeks. You gotta be kidding me!”