photo by Mike Carroll
Chase Rice took to Facebook yesterday to tell his story about how he got to where he is and where he is going. Pretty interesting read, check it out!
Here’s my story, and thank you to y’all. Cause truthfully without y’all I don’t have this record deal. Thank you!
It wasn’t just another Tuesday. It was MY Tuesday. I knew that when I went to sleep on Monday, I would wake up and this Tuesday would be one of those days I look back on when I’m old with grandkids and tell them that this Tuesday was one of the days that changed my life forever. I woke up with a feeling of accomplishment–a feeling of even though it was just the beginning, what I was about to do was something I have lost sleep over, sweat for, bleed for, gone to hospitals for, cried over…you get the point. I’ve busted my ASS for this Tuesday. MY Tuesday.
I got in a silver GMC Denali with my manager driving me and the rest of my management team in the backseat, and we were driving to where we had just over a year before only to be told no–Sony Nashville. It wasn’t a “no you’re not good enough” thing, or maybe it was, but I honestly think most of it was a no, you’re good, but “this new band ‘Florida Georgia Line’ is the hot thing right now, and we’re really trying to sign them.” Well, come back to MY Tuesday; a lot had changed, and I was about to merge my record company with one of the most powerful labels in the world. A record deal, that if worked, would make ME country music’s next overnight success. “Overnight”…that word is so ignorant. Let me take y’all back to where my “overnight” began, and believe it or not, it wasn’t the Monday that I went to sleep, before MY Tuesday.
I could start with where I learned guitar, or moving to Nashville, or a friendship with half of country music’s hottest new duo that dates back to age 0, but I won’t. My story’s beginning is way less glamorous than that: my career started, on a couch. I was strumming on my piece of junk college guitar and my dad of all people said, “Man that’s cool, but you ain’t ever gonna get any girls unless you start singing.” Great advice from a dad right, and any teenage kid would find that as huge motivation. Well, I asked him right there, “if I sing to you and mom, will you get me the guitar I’ve been asking for?” He was a motivator, and the best dad this world has ever seen, so of course his answer was “yes.” That afternoon I sang what were probably some of the worst versions of “Anything But Mine,” “Indian Outlaw” and “Friends In Low Places” y’all have ever heard. But not to my mom and dad; they cheered after every song (what good mom and dad wouldn’t?). Well, my dad held up his end of the deal and bought me my dream guitar, a Martin D-18 1934 Golden Era. That is where my story to MY Tuesday begins. On a couch, to an audience of two (really three if you’re a Christian like myself, you are the man JC)!
Let’s fast-forward through what in my opinion is the most important part: the overnight part. For three years now I’ve been writing and performing all across this beautiful country a lot of my fans refer to as “Merica.” When I say touring, I don’t mean Metallica and Rolling Stones arena shows every night. I mean getting my hands dirty touring. The ‘where it all begins’ type clubs and bars: anywhere from The Boathouse in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to Joes Bar in Chicago, to the house of blues in Anaheim California (yeah, I’m shocked I have fans way out there, too). From my truck to a van to a sprinter to now our first bus we have successfully gone from playing from 40 to 5,000. Y’all need to understand my mindset was just to play. Play to 40, hell that’s 38 more than my first concert. I wanted to beat my music into the heads of every redneck, blue collar, white collar, frat boy, sorority girl– popular or not so popular–kid in America. And we have. We have toured solid for three years now, and have built this fan base that is UNDENIABLE. Something so HUGE that my biggest song is at No. 40 on the charts, yet 5,000 people in Milwaukee, Wisconsin sang it like it was “Free Fallin’.” So huge that my little record label called Dack Janiels Records–that was never supposed to be known to anyone–has survived. It survived and was born because every label in town told me no. So I figured “hell, might as well make my own label.” Well, that label is now ALIVE. It lives on and is now teaming up with Columbia Records, one of the most powerful in the world. You see, this record deal on MY Tuesday is not your typical deal; it allows me to not abandon the creative control of the music that myself and my management have made work. After all, it’s done just that, WORKED, so why abandon that? It’s true, I have turned down labels, and labels have turned me down, I thank God for that. It has allowed me to continue to make my music, which is WORKING, and has led to a partnership that in country music, is from what I know is the first of it’s kind.
I heard Bo Jackson once say that he danced to the beat of his own drums, not someone else’s, his drums. Well, I look at where I am right now, and I can very proudly say I’m dancing to the beat of my own drums. The coolest part is, I’m not the only once dancing. I have a band. A band with CAA (booking agency) on the keys, 888 management rockin’ the bass, Sony ATV (publishing) playing the rhythm guitar, EB Media PR playing acoustic, my road crew singin’ all the harmonies, a badass producer directing everything take it sound so sick, and now Columbia records playing lead guitar. With A LOT of help(including RPM starting the radio promo before Columbia jumped on), “overnight” I have assembled a team, a team that is without a shadow of a doubt UNDENIABLE.
Why not move to Nashville and just get a record deal and let them make this thing happen like so many have tried? Because I wanted something special, I wanted the most important part of this “team” to be the most undeniable and relentless part. My FANS. See I had to take time, I had to pray, hell, I had to make mistakes to make every piece of the puzzle work perfectly. If I was going to build the most undeniably relentless fan base on the planet, I needed the most undeniable and relentless people by my side to make that happen.
The coolest part of all this? It ain’t even started yet. Sure “overnight” we have been busting ass, but NOW, the fun begins. MY Tuesday is day 1. Now the team is together, the Beatles have all the members of the band back. NOW we drop the hammer down on the 70 Hemi Cuda and let the good years spin. In case y’all haven’t gotten the point yet, this Tuesday I speak of that begins my overnight success, it isn’t MY Tuesday at all. It’s OUR Tuesday. It’s this undeniable, relentless team that will stop at nothing to make something unimaginable happen. So this is my thank you. Can’t a story begin with a thank you? The most important thank you goes to y’all, the FANS, without y’all, I’m truly a bunch of noise in an empty room. So let’s do it. We’re all here. Everyone’s in attendance…let’s make some NOISE.
PS, just lettin’ y’all know I wrote this over breakfast, in a few hours I will make my Opry Debut. Damn, that’s a HELL of a way to end OUR Tuesday, ain’t it?