On the Verge: Now Chris Janson has a boat

This week in On the Verge, Paste BN's spotlight on breakthrough artists, Brian Mansfield talks to country singer Chris Janson.

He wasn't kidding about the boat. When Janson sang that "Money can't buy everything ... but it can buy me a boat," he meant what he said. With his single Buy Me a Boat climbing the charts, Janson recently purchased kayaks for himself and his family so they could get out on the Harpeth River near his home in Nashville. Buy Me a Boat, Janson's breakout hit after a decade in Nashville, is No. 8 on Paste BN's Country airplay chart and has sold 436,000 copies, according to Nielsen Music. "It's good to be this busy; it's good to have work," says Janson, 29. "It's good to have something to talk about that everybody's talking about. I know what it's like to be the other way around. And that sucks."

Home on wheels. For the first three weeks after moving to Nashville in 2005, the Perryville, Mo., native slept in his car in a downtown parking lot while playing every shift he could get at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge nearby. "The first day, I got the 10 o'clock and the 2 o'clock," he says. Janson would play an additional shift whenever another singer would call out. Eventually, "I played four shows a day, four hours apiece, every single day." Eventually, customers put enough money in the pickle jar Janson used for tips to let him rent an apartment. "Save and save and save, and there you go."

Don't trust anyone. Early in his Nashville stay, Janson learned a hard lesson about being too trusting after loaning a cherished guitar to someone he later learned was a fugitive. "But he was a great musician," Janson says. "He borrowed a baby Taylor guitar that I had saved up my money and bought. The next day, I was like, 'Well, I'm sure I'll see him at Tootsie's.' He never showed back up."

Breaking Bones. When Janson posted Buy Me a Boat to iTunes in March, he emailed a handful of friends, hoping they'd plug his new tune on social media. Radio host Bobby Bones went him one better and played Janson's record on his syndicated morning show, unbeknownst to the singer. As Buy Me a Boat started shooting up iTunes' country sales chart, Bones called the singer to ask what he was going to do with his money. Janson replied, "Buy diapers."

Finally, an album. Janson briefly had a deal with Sony Music Nashville in 2010 but lost it after the executive who signed him left the label. He also co-wrote Tim McGraw's 2012 single Truck Yeah. After releasing Buy Me a Boat independently, he has signed with Warner Bros. and has nearly completed an album scheduled for release in October. "My terms were simple when I got the deal: 'Here's the single; can you work it fast? And can we do a record and get it out to fans?'" Janson says. "I'm so sick of telling people for 10 years that I've got a record coming out."

His backup plan. Janson's now touring with Toby Keith, but if the country music thing ever goes south, he might consider a second career in the chiropractic field. Already, he often spends free afternoons and weekends watching chiropractic videos on YouTube. "I want to be an amateur chiro; I'm way into it," he says. "It relaxes me. I know it's weird, I know."