Jason Aldean: 'What you see is what you get'
The clock ticked in Nashville’s Audio Productions facility, where Jason Aldean was cutting a series of video promos. He looked relaxed, laughed easily with crew members and seemed to be in no hurry at all.
Still, something was on his mind as he wrapped up the shoot and settled onto a couch inside the recording studio.
“My daughters are playing a softball game tonight,” he said, referencing Keeley, 13, and Kendyl, 9. “As soon as I leave here, that’s where I’m going.”
Country music fans often assume their favorite superstars whisk through a daily whirl of bus tours, stadium shows and red carpet events. But the artists themselves are often more concerned with everyday routines that anchor their lives. If, like Aldean, they’ve settled down, that usually means making sure not to miss their after-school activities. If they’re more at liberty, then partying, fishing, and/or hitting the bars with buddies back home take priority.
On his new album, They Don’t Know, out Friday, Aldean, 39, goes back to that world, much as he has done on each of his albums since his self-titled debut in 2005.
Having risen from an unpromising start in Nashville to his massive and ongoing Six String Circus Tour, and fresh off taking home the Entertainer of the Year award at the Academy of Country Music Awards , does Aldean find it harder than it used to be to draw from that reservoir of small-town values and high-school crushes that feed his repertoire?
“That really isn’t an issue for me,” he says. “Doing things the way I do is what got me to this point. I never wanted to overthink it, change this or that. I’m simple, man! I’m not flashy. I’m not gonna come out in a bedazzling jumpsuit. What you see is what you get. That’s what people relate to about me I’m a guy they want to sit down and drink a beer with. That’s what’s gotten me here.
“The main thing is the songs,” he continues. “I like each one to get the point and say what it says in a way that’s like I was just talking. I hate songs that get too clever and ‘songwriter-y,’ with all these little loops and spins. If I have to think too much about a song, it’s out.”
Aldean’s songs unfold over landscapes of place, time and memory. A photo from a long-ago spring break on In Case You Don’t Remember, a tiny “watertown” abandoned by romance one “a gray September day” on A Little More Summertime, a dizzy rush “down an open road … headed toward Mexico,” fueled by the promise of adventure on The Way a Night Should Feel: Vivid images streaming through singable melodies and strong instrumental hooks are the essence of Aldean.
“I will say this about love songs: I’ve never wanted them to get too mushy and sappy,” he admits. “Some guys do it great. Thomas Rhett and Die a Happy Man? Florida Georgia Line and H.O.L.Y.? Yeah, man. But for me as a singer, those songs are a turnoff. On The Way a Night Should Feel, it’s right in your face. It doesn’t even have to be a trip to Mexico; maybe you took a trip with your girlfriend to Myrtle Beach. Whatever it is, you can relate to that kind of a song, which is why I love them. When I hear these songs, they take me back to a point in my life. They hit a nerve with me and I count on the fact it’ll do that for somebody else too.”