SkiP HappEns Podcast
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SkiP HappEns Podcast
Behind the Scenes with Dustin Lynch at the New York State Fair
All I gotta do is plug this in. I was gonna say it's got a stick in there. Yeah, it does. It's just, you know, usb-c or a computer. It's an expensive toy. Yeah, all right, here we are. Are we ready? Coming to you in three, two, one. Hi everybody, it is Skip Clark. I am, of course, you know that at the Great New York State Fair, but I'm in a very special spot. I am backstage in a beautiful camper, by the way, and it's pretty cool. We've got a whole bunch of people here. I'm going to start this over, but I'll edit it. Coming to you in 3, 2, 1. Hi everybody, it is Skip Clark. I am live at the great New York State Fair and we are backstage because, guess who's in town tonight? It's the one and only Dustin Lynch. And Dustin, thanks for making the trip to the fair. Absolutely, it's great to be back. We've missed Syracuse. Yeah, when was the? Do you recall last time you were here?
Speaker 2:I remember well, we were near here. I forget the town. We were in, verona verona yep turning stone yep, exactly casino before that we were in uh god, we had an incredible arena show up here too. I remember the next day calling my book an agent going, hey, we need to, we need to come back to syracuse there do you know if you're at the amphitheater?
Speaker 1:um, you're very close to the amphitheater here at the fairgrounds. It's like right across the highway. It's on the other side. Awesome, you may have been, I don't know. All these shows are starting to run together. I have a very important question. First of all, how many cowboy hats do you own?
Speaker 2:Oh, I've probably got 30-ish at the house right now and they just keep coming in the mail. Interesting enough, though, I wear a resist all and they stopped making my hat in 2012. So they've been specially making them for me since then, and I just got news this year that that's going to discontinue.
Speaker 2:So whatever, however, they make them, whatever mold or form they use has gone bad, and there was only one that they had left in mexico and it went bad. So I've got to go to resist on and design a new hat this year, dude you got to change that.
Speaker 1:You got to get those hats out again. I know, you know you walked out. You got the uh, you know the trucker hat on or the baseball cap on and you walked over and they're like oh, there's dustin, I go. Nice that dustin, he doesn't have a cowboy. Yeah, I gotta disappear without that. Yeah I know I know it's cool. It's cool, by the way. You got huge teeth thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, um, I know that and it's it's. It's probably mom's fault.
Speaker 1:Everybody knows, you know you know, dude, the reason I asked you was, uh, meryl, one of our uh promotions, uh queens, over here she said you know she loves you, by the way, and the shows, and we we've been talking about this show for some time, but man, he's got big teeth. Yeah, I go. Okay, I didn't know, I'm about to go use them on a steak out there. I know now throwing her under the bus, now is this? Well, this is what we do, this is what we. Let's talk about you a little bit. Your latest project, what's going on with?
Speaker 2:that, yeah, I had a great week of writing this past. I'm writing songs pretty much every day. I'm home in Nashville and writing for the new country record, also putting some dance music out, which that's been a fun journey. This year I didn't see it coming, so a really creative spot for me right now.
Speaker 1:I love that and I would imagine we got some of that new music coming to radio here pretty quick Without a doubt. I mean, as I look, you know, from our friends at BBR Broken Bow, it's like yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's coming, it's coming. I'm working away at it and really excited We'll play some new stuff tonight. I was going to ask if you're going to play some of the new stuff as well as, of course, all the big hits. We will, yeah, we'll play all the hits and then this show, this set list. We're actually going to dip back and play some stuff off the very first album that I don't think we ever played.
Speaker 1:So it's going to be a fun night, a little throwback night. So how do you open up? How do you open up tonight? What's the song you're go back to, back to back, all Dustin.
Speaker 2:Lynch all the time. Yeah, I'd like to get out there and hit them hard right away and get the journey started. Is there one song that your fans yell the loudest for at every show. Gosh, probably Tonight I Would Think About you is way up there.
Speaker 1:That one and Small Town Boy, oh I love that, I love that, and you know it's pretty cool out there right now.
Speaker 2:You're in upstate new york, dude, are you really? Yeah, I see everybody in hoodies. I'm I'm gonna be in short sleeves tonight. Of course I'm jumping around.
Speaker 1:So, no, that's right, you don't feel it as much as you know, we're standing there right, right, exactly. I think it's only going to be like around 60 and it's going to drop down as your show gets underway. But uh, yeah, it's unusual. Usually it's state fair time. We're in the middle 80s to 90, and humid as as anything can be, so I'm glad it's pretty cool what's?
Speaker 1:uh, the dustin lynch song you'd crank up with the windows down. Let's say I'm driving through the through town here on the major highway, what song would you recommend that I crank? That you crank up a dustin lynch tune.
Speaker 2:Come on, okay, let's see, I don't know, I think I would probably play, play riding roads, probably what I'd go with.
Speaker 1:I love that, because that would go together with it. Yeah, exactly, so tell me a little bit about a day in the life of Dustin Lynch. You live in Nashville. Where are you from originally?
Speaker 2:Just south of Nashville, tell them I'm in Tennessee. Okay, a day in the life for me is wake up in the morning and live the dream. So right now it is legit. Pretty much every day I'm home, I'm trying to figure out how to get in the studio, how to record, how to write and also rest, you know, when we're off the road, take some time to myself and get outdoors. So Nothing too special, nothing too crazy. I don't have any kids running around the house, so I kind of just get to make it Pretty quiet. Yeah, I get to make the day up as I go.
Speaker 1:That's cool. You say you live in Nashville, but you don't have to tell me where exactly. But what part of town do you live in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm actually on the water up north of town, oh, really, yeah, we've got a trail cams out, we're starting to see what bucks are around and I just love to bow hunt, I love to archery hunt deer. So, um, getting to go out to idaho this year on an elk hunt in a few weeks and then, uh, elk, then it'll be, yeah, that'll be tennessee most of the fall. That's a big ass, deer yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:I'm just not. I can't even imagine trying to drag something like that out of the woods. Takes a lot of trips. It does. Yeah, imagine you have a four-wheeler. You just kind of pull it sometimes. Yeah, we try to get that close. I love that. So when you do your songwriting, where do you get your creativity? Is it tell us? Tell me, I know these are questions a lot of people do ask you, but we don't get to talk to you that often yeah, I mean honestly I just pull from real life situations.
Speaker 2:Either I'm going through or close friends are going through. Um, and right now I'm just riding this uh, really unique creative wave that that started in las vegas when we started doing dj sets out there at the win and, um, I'm getting to write just some really cool music that and collaborate with new songwriters and producers that I never thought I would get to do. Um, and I think that's really helping my country writing too, because it's allowing me to open up creatively and try new things, even like vocal delivery stuff. I'm doing that is not traditional for country, but I think getting to exercise that one or two times a week allows me to go in and write some different kind of country music too.
Speaker 1:You know we love country, obviously, but country isn't really what country used to be. Yeah, you know everything is evolving. With time we go through changes. Now we have all these collaborations coming out. For example, Post Malone and everybody and their brother are doing that. Everybody's hooking up with somebody to put something out. Is there somebody that you would like to collaborate with that you haven't.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I mean Post would be awesome. I've got to do one with him now that you mentioned him, Hang on, hang on, Hold on a minute.
Speaker 1:I won that bet today. I said he's going to say Post. Yeah, we'll manifest that.
Speaker 2:I think I'd like to do a song with luke bryan. You know, because we had so much fun together on the road through the years, I think we found the right song to be fun to do with him. Uh, blake shelton would be cool to do on with.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I've got him out there a lot of fun. You're quite the part of your, and all those guys that you've mentioned are those that like to go out and have a good time. Oh yeah, absolutely so. I can only imagine if and when that happens, that collaboration happens, it's going to be just a pretty crazy wild feel-good song. It should be a decent video set to be at for sure you probably wouldn't be able to do it in one shot.
Speaker 2:I don't think you would be able to.
Speaker 1:So what's your favorite food? I know they're cooking steak out here for you.
Speaker 2:That's it. I'm really just a meat and potatoes guy. If I'm close to the coast I'll get some great seafood, but most of the time I'm eating steak chicken. King of the grill.
Speaker 1:Meat and potatoes. That's it. How do you like it? Medium rare?
Speaker 2:No, I'll go probably medium, medium well tonight.
Speaker 1:Oh well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Doesn't that kind of take the flavor out of the steak? Depends on what cut you got, yeah. How about venison, love venison? Yeah, do you do the stew?
Speaker 2:I haven't done the stew, I'm just simple. So I'm just doing the backstraps and grilling what about the roast there's any sort of roast in any of that. I'm giving that away.
Speaker 1:Really, you don't the roast, you don't, no, you give that to somebody.
Speaker 2:It's tough to cook a roast for one dude, you know, so I've got to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's when you have all the buddies over man. So how do you feel about the state of country music right now? I love it. It's you, you know I correct me if I'm wrong, because doing what you do and doing what I do, we hear there's a lot of like. I mentioned post and and we now have Morgan who's got every other song pretty much on the radio. It's a Morgan Wallen song, but that whole it's such a huge crossover now it doesn't Does anybody really, at least in my opinion, I don't think they do. I know Misty's listening to this, but everybody like our listeners, they could be top 40. They're rhythmic and then they'll turn over and listen to you on country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a really cool spot we're in right now and having the success of Morgan and Luke Holmes and Post worldwide globally on the global charts is really cool. I and Luke Holmes and Post worldwide globally on the global charts it's really cool. I think it's turned on a lot of new ears and eyes to the genre and I think we're in a really healthy spot and there's room for everybody.
Speaker 1:There is and you're proving that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's guys exactly, and we've been blessed to have songs that lean a little bit more traditional country and then some that really push the envelope and we've got young artists doing all of it.
Speaker 1:So it, uh, we've got young artists doing all of it, so, uh, it's really fun time. Yeah, it's cool. So you talked about the dj sets at the win in vegas. Tell me a little bit more about that being the dj set. How does all that work?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I, I just stumbled into it. I had a buddy that, um, it was. He asked me to come play an after party for pbr world finals. Um, we had. I sang the song. We filmed the video for the opening broadcast for for pbr bull, bull riding. So, it was.
Speaker 2:it was kind of a natural fit to go do that, and I didn't want to just sing karaoke at the wind because it's not like the right vibe for excess, um, but I had five weeks so I put a show together of all of my country hits, but re-imagined. So, um, we went in and produced like uh, kind of just electronic country, you know builds and drops and all that stuff, and I thought it would be one night ever I'd get to play XS and that was it. So I was excited and the next day after we played the phone started ringing. Wow, yeah, I guess word had got out that what we had done really worked. It felt like connected for the win. The next week we were in Miami, then we were in Toronto, then we were back to the win in Vegas and after the second performance they asked if we'd be residents this year. Wow, dude, we're just wrapping up our first residency out there. If you'd have told me I'd have a residency at the Wynn, playing DJ sets at Excelsior.
Speaker 1:I know that's crazy, it's pretty wild. It is pretty wild. And to have a residency, I mean, how cool is that? Number one it's great.
Speaker 2:I've always loved Las Vegas and it's a unique residency with the nightlife because it's not a bunch of days in a row so we're in in there. You know, one day a month, two days a month, so you get to pop in for a night, enjoy what Vegas has to offer and then get out. You know, it's not like you're stuck in the same routine, so it's a really fun time.
Speaker 1:All right if you're not listening to country. If I was to get into your truck, I assume you drive a truck. Yeah, okay, what do you got silverado, I do yeah okay, I guessed it right there you go me too. Uh, no, actually at the colorado now. But downsize a little bit, but um, what would be on your playlist? Not country, what else?
Speaker 2:would. Yeah, um, I'm, I live in the world right now because I'm doing it. Um, I'm really out there looking around, searching around in the edm world, so there's a lot of different sub-genres of that, so I'm picking around there. It depends on the day of the week, like if I'm coming off the road, I love to just chill out and not think about country hits, so I'm definitely not going to be scanning those. That's usually a Monday, tuesday morning type. That's when you've got to go to work. Well, that's when I start thinking about country music again. Yeah, like, on a Sunday, I'm definitely not going to be ripping. You know, because we were playing Thursday, friday, saturday, so I don't know. I'd probably, if you jumped in with me Sunday afternoon, I'd probably play Rufus DeSalle or something like that.
Speaker 1:So you didn't take the bus here today.
Speaker 2:I see your bus out there, but you flew in this morning. Yeah, the buses came up early um earlier in the week and everybody flew up and met them, uh, last night.
Speaker 1:But you're taking them out of here today yeah we'll head to vermont from here. You sleep on the bus, and what is that? Life on a tour bus like?
Speaker 2:it's a lot of fun. I tried to have my own bus and I missed the band dudes um, so we downsized, I went back and I just love it's. You know it's a band of brothers out here. So we downsized, I went back and I just love it's. You know it's a band of brothers out here, so we're just watching movies having fun.
Speaker 1:I love it. Dustin Lynch, you know what. Thanks for taking some time to hang with us today. So good to see you. I cannot wait to see the show. I'll be doing the presents up there tonight and bring you out on stage. I would assume it'll be a what we call in the business the soft opening but either way and I'm excited to be here, I'm excited to see you, excited to say hello, thank you, and I can't wait to hear some of the new music as well. Dustin, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, thank you.
