When Hootie & the Blowfish released their debut “Hold My Hand” single in the summer of 1994, Scotty McCreery was a couple of months away from his first birthday. So it seems unlikely that the song, from Hootie & the Blowfish’s debut Cracked Rear View album, would become the soundtrack of McCreery’s childhood, even though that’s exactly what happened.
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Both McCreery and Hootie & the Blowfish’s lead singer, Darius Rucker, grew up in the Carolinas, albeit decades apart. But when McCreery was on a writing retreat, penning songs for his next album, he kept coming back to “Hold My Hand.” He shared the idea with his longtime songwriting partner and producer, Frank Rogers, and the rest is history.
“I had mentioned how much I loved Hootie & the Blowfish, and Frank being from South Carolina and a frequent collaborator with Darius knew exactly what to do with that,” McCreery tells Billboard. “We started strumming the tune that would eventually become ‘Bottle Rockets‘. And at the end of the makeshift chorus we had at that point, Frank went into ‘Hold My Hand.’ It fit like a glove. Everyone was laughing and high-fiving because we knew we were on to something. The song really just spilled out from there.”
How Scotty McCreery Got Hootie & the Blowfish To Sing on “Bottle Rockets”
Using a Hootie & the Blowfish song in a new song is one thing, but getting the iconic band to sing on it with McCreery is something else. McCreery and Rucker are by now good friends, but that didn’t make the idea of asking the band any less intimidating.
“To be honest, I was nervous to ask them about this song, because ‘Hold My Hand’ has to be one of their babies,” McCreery says. “I knew I loved how the song came out, but I obviously couldn’t be sure what they would think until they heard it. I was very glad to hear each one of the guys loved ‘Bottle Rockets’ and were very open to the idea of getting back in the studio and being on this song with me. You should have seen the smile on my face when I got that text back.”
“Bottle Rockets” is currently in the Top 5 on the charts. The song is on McCreery’s latest Scooter & Friends EP, out now. The two acts reportedly just shot a music video for the hit single.
Photo by C Brandon/Redferns
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