We have another awesome giveaway for you here at Top Country, we’re giving away 3 Justin Moore prize packs! Each prize pack contains an autographed bullhide cowboy hat, a t-shirt and a copy of Justin’s latest album, Off the Beaten Path! Enter to win below! Contest closes Sunday, December 1st, 2013.
After you enter be sure to scroll down and check out our interview with Justin! Top Country got to talk to him about working with Miranda Lambert and Charlie Daniels on his new album and his first trip to Canada! (Can you believe he thought Canada might hate him? – oh Justin, we could never!)
CONTEST NOW CLOSED
Q
Can you tell us a bit about the process of creating Off The Beaten Path?
A
It was a little bit different than the first two albums I’ve done, I knew exactly what I wanted those to sound like and to be and to be honest with you with this one I was completely stumped, I had no idea. It kind of became defined by the songs that we went out and found and the songs that we wrote and I’m proud of it, I think it’s the most diverse album I’ve done. It’s not going to cross over by any stretch of the imagination but there’s some songs on this record that I don’t think I would have cut earlier on in my career; my goal was to cut an album that allowed me to stay true to what’s gotten me to this point in my career but also grow the music.
Q
What’s a song on this album that you are particularly proud of?
A
I’m proud of a lot of them, I think probably my favourite song off the album is a song called “That’s How I Know You Love Me”. It’s one of the songs that I didn’t write, but that said it’s a really personal song to me. It’s the type of love song that people have probably come accustomed to hearing from me, having somebody else, your significant other, make you a better individual, and this song does the same thing. The way the songwriters wrote it they just did a great job and it’s a beautiful song.
As far a songwriter the song I’m probably most proud of on this album is “For Some Old Redneck Reason”. Not necessarily because of the song itself but because Charlie Daniels is one of my heroes, so to have not only sing on but play fiddle on a song that I wrote on my album is a really special thing to me.
Q
Yeah, I was actually just going to ask you about that, what was it like working with Miranda and Charlie on this album?
A
It was awesome. In this day and time with the technology available we weren’t actually in the studio at the same time, but the fact that they lent their talents and their time to my project, it’s really, really cool. I’ve known Miranda for a long time, we’ve been really good friends for a number of years now and worked together on a lot of tours and I’ve always had a blast. I heard this song “Old Habits” and immediately thought I had to get her on it, fourtunately I called her and she answered, I sent her the song through e-mail and she loved the song as much as I did. Obviously she knocked it out of the park and I wouldn’t have expected anything less from her.
Q
You recently wrapped up your first headlining tour, what was they whole experience like for you?
A
It was great, it was nerve-wracking, exciting – it was all of the above! It was a lot of fun, we’ve been out with just about everybody out there with the exception of just a few artists and early this year we just kind of got to the point where we decided we need to try this. We’ve been able to put together a tour on a little grander scale with bigger arenas and more production and the fact that we’ve got Randy Houser and Josh Thompson going out and opening for us is really exciting, they’re both having a lot of success in their own right. Randy’s probably as hot as anybody in our format right now so we’re looking forward to being out there and seeing how much it’s grown since earlier on in they year.
Q
Has anything really weird or crazy happened to you while you’ve been out on tour?
A
Always. Thankfully I didn’t fall off the stage or anything like that, I was on tour with Miranda Lambert last time I did that so thankfully that didn’t happen again.
Q
You visited Canada last month, was this your first time in Canada?
A
It wasn’t, we were up here with Brad Paisley about four years ago and that was our first time to get up this way and we had a blast, it was great. My single at the time was “Small Town USA” which went #1 in the States and I was thinking, “man these people are gonna hate me up here” because my only song they’d heard was about being from America but people were actually singing at the top of their lungs.That proved to me right then that the fans here and the fans back home are the same people, we just live across from each other. Ever since then we’ve been back every so often to do the big festivals and that kind of stuff but this was the first time I’ve been up here for a few days in a row with the exception of the Brad Paisley tour and it was a lot of fun. Hopefully we’re laying the foundation to maybe head back up and bring the whole tour.
Q
That’s great, you actually just answered my last question! So you’re hoping to bring the tour to Canada?
A
That’s the goal.
