 learn music online |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
“When we were making the first album (Horse of a Different Color) Big Kenny was in debt $140,000 in credit cards, living in a little farm house out in a field, driving a broke-down truck,” John Rich recalls. “And I wasn’t doing much better. We were two guys trying to make this outrageous album for country radio, and wondering, are we just completely pissing in the wind? I was what I’d call a two-time loser. I’d got fired from the band Lonestar. Then I made a solo album that didn’t do anything. So Big & Rich was my third chance and if you get three chances in this business, you’re pretty damn lucky. This time around, we didn’t worry. We just went in and cut what felt good to us. The biggest thing we’ve learned so far is that if it’s turning on me and Kenny musically, it will turn on our fans.” On From Raising Hell to Amazing Grace, Big & Rich and company sound even more turned on to be making their own open-hearted, open-minded brand of “country music without prejudice.” For Big Kenny, “Our mission this time around was to step it up again and make Act 3 -- to make great songs into a great record, start to finish. Being Big & Rich, the only thing success has done is allow us to do more for more people and to make more music for ourselves. We’re not resting on our laurels or kicking back for a moment. We have to have all extremes. See to John and me, records are more like mix tapes. We take it to all extremes and then make it all fit together – the idea is to never get bored. We just try to find great moments wherever we go – that’s what keeps our yin and yang working, that’s what keeps us Big & Rich. Hopefully what we’re doing will just keep encouraging more and more people to be themselves and be real.” “We know what we do is freaky,” John Rich says. “We know we’re combining stuff in the chemistry set that in the instructions say `Don’t combine these things or they might explode.’ We say fine, let’s combine them anyway. We’ll just wear a helmet. That’s our whole attitude toward music.” That kind of thinking has helped make the duo and the MuzikMafia – of which Big & Rich are proud, central members -- a force to be reckoned with, and a force for tremendous good in Music City. Already the Mafia has introduced the listening, watching world to an unforgettable cast of real characters like Gretchen Wilson, Cowboy Troy, Jon Nicholson, James Otto, Shannon Lawson, Damien Horne, Shanna Crooks and many more to come. “The thing I’m most proud of is that the members of the MuzikMafia have stuck together even after going multi-platinum,” says Big Kenny. “It’s easy sticking together when you’re all broke. It’s been like being on a football team and winning the Super Bowl a couple of times. It’s fun to win, but it’s a lot more fun to win with your friends. I know we’ve given the artistic community in Nashville a bigger set of balls, and we’ve watched our old friends getting signed. It was a big door to knock down. We have this philosophy that there should be no bureaucracy in creativity. Let the artists be the artists and do what they do. All the little boxes they put people in were beginning to suffocate creativity. The thing I’m most proud of is that John and I have made a big enough crack in the door that other artists are sticking their foot through now.” In this way, Big & Rich are now part of a story even bigger than their own impressive success. “I know we’ve given people hope and give labels some more courage,” says Rich. “That’s bigger than just our career – that’s impacting the business in general. Kenny and I love country music and the way we see it, it’s the most inclusive music in the world. We’ve had black guys like Charley Pride, real hippies like Willie. To us country is the greatest music and if what we do expands what country means -- that’s the greatest success of all. All the people we consider the pillars of country music -- let’s name some: Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Alabama, Garth -- all these people shook things up in a big way.” Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace hits stores on June 5th. Look for the boys on tour this summer in a city near you.
|
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
©2001-2008 Berklee College of Music
Terms of Use |
Privacy Policy
Contact Us |
About Us
Berkleemusic is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)