Tim McGraw‘s sixteenth solo album, Standing Room Only, has just dropped. McGraw recently chatted with Apple Music 1‘s Zane Lowe, where they discussed the singer’s new album, the importance of songwriting, and Jason Aldean’s controversial song and video, “Try That in a Small Town.”
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“We all make mistakes and we’re going to make mistakes and we’re going to do bad stuff, and all you can do is try to get up the next day and be the best you can be that day, and know you’re going to screw up again later down the road, and you got to figure out how to put that behind you,” McGraw said while speaking about the inspiration behind Standing Room Only. “And I’m lucky because music is cathartic and for me, it’s my therapy. So, to be able to go in the studio and have these great songs and sort of work out your emotional baggage through these songs is a blessing.”
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“I think the moment that I feel like I’m not improving and learning and getting better every time I go in the studio, getting better with how sonically I want things to sound, how I want to sing, the songs that I want to record, if I get to the point where I think that I’m not improving,” McGraw continued. “That’s going to be the time to stop doing it because I never want to be the guy that’s just doing the same thing over and over and over again.”
McGraw later discussed just how dear songwriting is to his heart. “I’m always searching to get better… There are times when it feels difficult and there are times where it feels easy, but to me it’s always about finding the song,” McGraw said. “Whether I’m writing the song or listening to songs, coming from other songwriters who are friends of mine, it’s just about finding a song that has some meaning to it and some heart and some soul to it. And without the song, you have nothing.
“And I always say that everything good in my life has come from country music and it’s given me everything in my life, and I sort of worship at the altar of songs. That’s true. Without that, you don’t have anything,” McGraw continued. “It’s everything, and when we were recording this album, we started recording this album during the pandemic because I had released my last album Here on Earth and it came out smack dab in the middle of the pandemic.”
Lowe also asked McGraw about Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town.” “Honestly, I know what you’re referring to and I can honestly say I haven’t heard the song or seen the video, but I do know from my experience that the small town I grew up in was a great place and it was full of great people, and it was of all races, and everyone got along,” McGraw responded. “Like I said, I don’t remember anything that was negative in that light from the small town I grew up in…”
Photo: Robby Klein / Courtesy of Full Coverage Communications / Kristen Foster
