Tyler Farr can still recall how his high school classmate Billy would pull his tractor into the gravel lot of the school, while another friend often got paged over the school intercom about his dogs escaping and running down the road. “That’s where I was raised,” Farr says with a laugh to American Songwriter. “It was a good breeding ground for good country songs.”
Videos by American Songwriter
Farr admits that he didn’t anticipate becoming a country star during his backwoods upbringing in Garden City, Missouri. After all, his mother forced him into classical singing, which he balanced with his love for sports and hunting. Farr would go on to become a chart-topping singer with hits like “Redneck Crazy,” “A Guy Walks Into a Bar” and “Whiskey in My Water.” His 2023 EP, Rednecks Like Me, marks the first time he’s co-written every song on a project. Below, he talks to American Songwriter about being signed to Jason Aldean’s label, Rednecks Like Me and what it truly means to be “redneck.”
On his musical upbringing and being classically trained:
“I was always dancing or singing or doing something stupid, and that has continued. My mom got me into classical training when I was in seventh grade. Debbie Mills was the best vocal coach in Missouri and she lived in Harrisonville about 20 minutes from us, so I started taking lessons from her. I just love singing anything, Boyz II Men, New Edition to Hank [Williams] Jr. to Garth Brooks, because it just came natural to me, so I gravitated towards it.
“I still played sports and football and baseball – you could imagine who they wanted to tackle, the guy that was singing the national anthem with shoulder pads on. Having to play tailback was not a good position to play when you’re singing the national anthem classically. [I] did the classical thing just because my mother made me. I’m glad she did. Then my mom married George Jones’s lead guitar player when I was 16 and the rest is history. That’s what set me off.”
On his “flurry” of success with back-to-back hits:
“When you’re in the heat of it, I’m talking like when ‘Redneck Crazy’ hit and ‘Whiskey in My Water’ hit, ‘A Guy Walks Into a Bar’ hit, I call that the flurry years, just like a hurricane because I didn’t expect to be famous, to be honest. I moved to Nashville because I could sing and that’s how I could make money and that’s all I’ve ever been good at. When you’re on the road and you’re going going going, it taught me how to sing and how to sing properly so you don’t blow your voice out which I did anyways, because I’ve had vocal surgery, but keeps you in check. My first two singles tanked. I remember talking to my manager, ‘We just need to swing for the fence.’ I never had much of a filter, never lived carefully. I like to swing for the fence and that’s what we did on that.”
On meeting Jason Aldean and getting signed to his label, Night Train Records:
“I remember all these tours came in and we had this one tour that was our goal. We get the call, ‘Jason Aldean wants to take you on tour with him with Florida Georgia Line.’ I’ll never forget that because I freaked the hell out. It was awesome. I’m grateful to be part of it.
“Someone asked me the other day, what’s your best advice? I said, ‘Don’t be a jerk to anybody because you never know who you’re going to be working for or working with.’ That’s where that paid off because I had no idea I’d be working with him. We just hit it off. I’ll never forget the first day I was on tour with him and I walked right up to his bus, knocked on his door [and said], ‘Thanks for having me on this tour.’ And from there, it’s history. I toured two years in a row with him. It’s funny how things come full circle and I’m signed to Jason’s label.
“One night we was in his bowling alley. He said, ‘Why don’t you quit letting them put these crappy songs out on you and I’ll sign you and put out some real stuff?’ Which is a very polite way for Jason Williams to say, ‘I want to sign you and I’ll start a label. I believe in you.’ I was very humbled by that for him even wanting to because I respect his music, he respects mine. It just means a lot to me for him to even say that.
“For Jason to give his approval and OK [the EP], it means a lot to me because I wrote all the songs. ‘Questions’ is very personal, ‘Country As Shit’ is a wild thing, and ‘Rednecks Like Me’ is the American ‘hell yeah.’ It’s a very versatile album, but it all pieces together well and I’m just proud as hell about it. It’s a pretty big achievement for me.”
On the meaning of “Rednecks Like Me”:
“‘Rednecks Like Me’ is not necessarily a story song. I wrote it with Vicky Mcgehee, Andy Sheridan and Brian Davis. I remember in the writing room that day [saying], ‘I want to write songs for my kind of people because they need those songs.’ And that’s what we did. I started scrolling through my notes and ‘Rednecks Like Me,’ I had that in there and I’m like, ‘Let’s write that because that’s towards my fanbase.’ When I’m writing a song, I’m thinking about who I’m singing to and it’s these mud bars that I play, these honky tonks and people that are the same as me. That’s how we wrote it.
“The military has always been a big thing to me, very important part of who I am, so this song honors them too: I’m red, white and blue/How about you. When I’m writing these songs, I’m thinking about who I’m singing it to, and I’m going, ‘That oughta get them going’ because they believe in the same stuff I do, which is God family, friends, freedom, hard work. I remember the first time I sang it and these people are just going crazy and they hadn’t even heard it. This song is basically a painting of who I am and what I believe in and what I stand for and there’s other people that believe the same thing I believe in. That’s what I’m seeing as well.”
On the EP’s most personal song, “Questions”:
“The song about my daughter is called ‘Questions.’ Andy [Sheridan] started playing this thing on the piano and I’m like, ‘That’s beautiful.’ We wrote ‘Questions,’ this very intimate song about my daughter … I wanted to write a song for my daughter and I had that when she starts asking questions some days, that’s how I had it in my phone. I wanted to write a real song.
“Dads are scared shitless, they don’t know what to do when they’re a first-time dad. And that was me. I’m like, ‘I’m gonna have to make some changes. It’s gonna take a minute, but I’m gonna do the best I can and be there for her and I don’t have a damn clue what I’m doing.’ She’s just entirely changed my life. It really puts it in perspective. So that song was more of a real song for dads out there. It has some vulnerability to it to where it’s like, ‘I’m not perfect. I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m gonna try my damnedest and that’s all you can do.'”
On what it means to be a redneck:
“I have a line in a song I wrote called ‘Country Boy’ and it’s one of my favorite lines of ever: You don’t know about this/I don’t know about that/I might be a redneck/But don’t call me white trash. There’s a difference. Redneck to me and where it came from, it’s been around a long time. When you think of redneck, that’s red on your neck that someone outside is working, fixing barbed wire, working cattle. It’s your American man, or at least my opinion should be, working with his hands, sweating his butt off to try to make a better life for his family. That’s what redneck means to me. It ain’t about drinking Miller Lite and chewing tobacco, that’s not what makes you a redneck. When someone calls me, ‘Redneck as hell,’ it’s a compliment to me.”
Photo Credit: Chase Lauer/Courtesy of BBR Music Group
