Exclusive: Old Dominion Has “Curse of Being Clever” on ‘Odies But Goodies’

November 9, 2024 8:45 am

Old Dominion will defend its Vocal Group of the Year title at the 58th CMA Awards, which will air live from Nashville, Tennessee, 7 p.m. Nov. 20 on ABC.

The men have nine No. 1 songs on their resume, and if they win Group of the Year on Nov. 20, they will have taken the trophy seven years in a row.

Old Dominion celebrated its 10 years in country music this fall with a 31-song quasi-greatest hits package cleverly called Odies But Goodies. Singer Matthew Ramsey laughed, thinking the title might be too clever.

“We titled Odies But Goodies, but everyone says ‘Oldies But Goodies,’” he said. “We were just trying to be funny. It’s funny when you say it. When you read it, it gets glanced over.”

Ramsey said the band chose the name for many reasons, including that fans call them Odie. The band also named their upcoming Nashville bar Odie’s, and their fan community is called Odies. The band just decided to keep it going.

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Old Dominion: “It’s Such a Common Phrase”

The name makes sense, Ramsey said, until it’s in writing, everyone reads oldies.

“It’s just such a common phrase, and we’re the curse of being a clever,” he said. “We’re writers, and it’s a play on words. It’s just what we love to do, but it allows us to talk about it a little bit more.”

Odies But Goodies is home to songs including “Snapback,” “Make It Sweet,” “Break Up with Him,” “Hotel Key,” “Written in the Sand” and more. The singer said it has taken the band a decade to accumulate such a singalong hit parade, and they are “super proud” of it. The idea for the album was born on the band’s 2023 No Bad Vibes Tour.

“It was such a huge learning experience for us and sort of forced us to realize how much work we had put in and what kind of fan base we had built,” Ramsey said, explaining fans started showing up with large signs with song requests written on them. “About halfway through the tour, we realized we needed to build in a couple of different spots during the set list to just take requests.”

Their fans didn’t just request hit songs – they were also after deep album cuts. Old Dominion’s show at the famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre was where they took requests for the first time. From then on – for better or worse—they never stopped.

Old Dominion Made Their Fans a Mixtape

“No matter how long it had been since we played the song, we would give it a shot, and most times came out pretty good,” he said. “But, we just learned the depth our fans were willing to go. That’s what kind of sparked this whole idea for the album –that maybe in an age where people can make their own playlists and, us thinking it might be a nice gift to make essentially a mixtape for our fans. It’s kind of like going to one of our shows.”

The tracklist is so extensive because Ramsey and his bandmates couldn’t whittle down the songs.

“When you do evaluate it, I do feel like we manage to do something that no one else does,” Ramsey said. “I can say that without being arrogant about it or too cocky. That’s simply because it’s the five of us together doing something, and that our chemistry creates our sound and, what we write and how we perform it. And we can’t help but do something that no one else does. We’re lucky in that aspect.”

(Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Stagecoach)