Russell Dickerson always wanted to make it big.
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The country singer entered the scene in 2015, releasing “Yours.” Three years later, the song found its way to the top of Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart. Things didn’t slow down from there. Dickerson’s next three singles—”Blue Tacoma,” “Every Little Thing,” and “Love You Like I Used To”—all hit No. 1 too.
The chart-topping success was fleeting, though, and a period of uncertainty followed.
“In the beginning, I was like, ‘Boom.’ To have four number ones in a row, you’re like, ‘We’re doing it,’” Dickerson told American Songwriter. “And then I think there was a season of… me not [getting] as huge as I thought, not progressing bigger.”
While Dickerson hasn’t disappeared off the airwaves in the years following his initial success, doubt plagued him. That remained the case until he released “Happen To Me,” the debut single off of his latest LP, Famous Back Home, which is out now.
“There were times—even right up until ‘Happen To Me’—of, ‘Is this as big as it’s going to get?’ and ‘Am I OK with that?’” Dickerson said. “[I was] coming to terms with it, kind of wrestling with God a little bit. I was like, ‘Come on! I know the dreams that you’ve given me. I see them… We’re years and years in now.’”
The Success of “Happen To Me”
“Happen To Me” changed everything. The single gave Dickerson his biggest streaming debut week yet, and has continuously climbed the Billboard Hot 100 chart since its release.
“It’s just been cool, and a relief as well. I was about to quit. I was about to give up,” he admitted. “That has really been wind in our sails.”
That’s especially true on the road. Dickerson has been selling out venues amid his RussellMania Tour, and his “favorite part” of each show has been the crowd’s response to “Happen To Me.”
“We started the tour [in March] in Nashville. The song had been out for two weeks. From the downbeat of the intro, it was just like, ‘Ahh!’ It was like nothing we’ve ever experienced before,” Dickerson recalled. “… That’s when we all kind of knew, ‘Oh, snap. Things are changing drastically and fast.’”
“Now it’s even louder. It just keeps building and keep growing,” he added. “Every night I look so forward to that moment.”
Russell Dickerson on His Fourth Studio Album
Dickerson is hoping to recreate the success of “Happen to Me” with all the tracks on Famous Back Home. The 12-song album, Dickerson promised, is his “most drastic” yet.
The LP goes from showing Dickerson’s “sentimental side” on the title track, to “Never Leave,” a Vince Gill collab with two electric guitars, and “Worth Your Wild,” which has “100 guitars and massive drums.” Lyrically, on “16 Me,” Dickerson was able to channel his teenage self by “just closing my eyes and just flowing those memories out into lyrics.”
Elsewhere, “Sippin on Top of the World,” which is one of two songs on the LP that Dickerson did not co-write, “is the big, heavy, sludgy guitar song” with a message that, “at the end of the day, we’re going to have a sunset, me and my girl, sipping on top of the world.”
“That’s the span of my artistry,” he said. “I am super uptempo, rock and roll, heavy guitars, but also sit down on the front porch with an acoustic guitar and serenade my wife.”
With the album finally out in the world, Dickerson couldn’t have a more positive mindset regarding the future of his career.
“The more this progresses and gets there, the easier it gets,” he said. “For so many years, it was not easy and not fun. You’re just grinding and grinding and flying and 3 a.m. and wake-up call and this and that. It’s so fun to be at a point to where… It’s getting a lot less taxing mentally, physically.”
“I feel like the two words that God gave me this year were easy and fun,” Dickerson added. “It’s been nothing but that—finally!—because, for a long time, it was neither of those.”
Photo by Bree Marie Fish
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