WBDC Talks With Drew Baldridge Ahead of Huntingburg’s 4th Friday

WBDC’s Jared Atkins talks with Country Music Star Drew Baldridge about his performance this weekend in Huntingburg as his hit song “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” continues it’s rise to the top of of the country music charts.

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Jared Atkins: 101 Country WBDC, Jared Atkins here. And coming up this weekend, of course, is the Red, White & Brauen Music Festival, but that gets kicked off on Friday evening with the 4th Fridays. And on the phone with us, someone that’s going to be performing at the 4th Fridays, rising country music star Drew Baldridge. How are you doing?

Drew Baldridge: I’m good, brother. How are you? 

I’m doing pretty good. So I’ve got a few questions for you. First of all, 4th Fridays, how did that come to be? How did you get to be a part of that? 

Man, I just got reached out to. You know, just glad to be a part of it. Glad to be bringing country music to the area and doing the whole thing. We’ve been playing music for a long time. We’ve been out on tour this whole year, so we’re excited to bring a great show to the folks. 

Country Music Stars, a lot of times they’re in jam-packed stadiums or jam-packed arenas with 20 or 30,000 people, but sometimes these smaller community events where there’s a few hundred people or a few thousand people sometimes seems like a much more personal experience. What’s that like getting to play these personal shows? What’s that like for an artist like yourself? 

Well man, you know, over COVID, you know, I’ve been in Nashville for 13 years and had a record deal from 2016 to 2019 that lost that deal In 2019 the record company I was on closed its doors and then COVID hit I you know lost my manager and my booking agent my label and I didn’t really know what to do And so over COVID man I just posted on social media and said I’ll play in anybody’s backyard that wants to have me and I thought I’d get like five or ten requests and we ended up getting close to twenty some thousand requests. 

I went around the country for three years and played in over 300 people’s backyards just me and a guitar and played you know for five people, played for hundreds of people’s and people’s backyards, small intimate settings and so man I love them. You know I love community. I grew up in a town of 500 people, graduated high school with 22 kids before moving to Nashville. And I love the smaller community events. 

I mean, that’s kind of what has given us our start over the last couple years, kind of revamping what we’re doing. And now, you know, thinking about coming to play for y’all, I just, I love little town events. I love being a part of them. And you know, it’s probably gonna take me back a little bit to play in those. People bring out their lawn chairs and hang out and I really enjoy it. 

At the end of the day that’s what it’s about, the essence of it all. You know, you in an acoustic or you with an acoustic electric amp, it’s just you get there and you vibe with your audience and you know we always hear you country stars say that it’s such an almost like an out of body experience at times. 

Oh yeah man, anytime you can get to perform and you know we’re super excited right now because we have the number one song in the country this moment, which is super crazy to think about. And so coming this weekend, kind of like a, you know, a celebratory show to come out and play and thinking, hey, we have the number one song in real time. And, you know, come Monday, it’ll print that we have the number one song. So this weekend, it’s a big celebration for us as a band, a big celebration for me and all my my fans, my listeners. I had to do this such an unconventional way of starting my own record label in the last year and send my own song to country radio and kind of felt alone in that process. But I always had the listeners and the fans supporting me with She’s Somebody’s Daughter and sharing this song and telling people about it. You know, coming there this weekend to play for y’all, we’re going to, you know, we’re talking about a number one song in the country and the fans really, the fans did it. They got it there for me. 

You’re on another level because you are in sync with your audience. That was actually my next segue because you’ve got one of the fastest rising songs and it’s already and it is such a catchy tune. Matter of fact, to be completely honest, earlier this morning, long before I knew I was going to interview you, I was walking around the studio just singing that song just by hap- and I mean it is such a catchy tune. Was that one that you had written yourself or was that done in a  collaboration with somebody else? 

Yeah, a couple buddies of mine. I wrote to somebody’s daughter after meeting my wife, now my wife, at that time she was just my girlfriend. I met her dad for the first time, and coming back to Nashville and got to thinking, like, man, if I break her heart, I’ll be breaking more than just her heart. We’re breaking her mom’s heart and her dad’s heart, and I just wanted to write a song as a message to me to never forget that. This is a message to myself to don’t be a screw up. And that’s that’s where it came from. Such a real place. And she actually danced. My wife danced to on our wedding night, danced this song with her dad. And it wasn’t even out. The wedding version wasn’t even out. Then we posted on my honeymoon and on TikTok. And I think I said, like, hey, if this gets five thousand likes, I’ll put it out on Friday, just hoping it would get it. We woke up Thursday morning, man, almost 10 million views on the video. And our life was forever changed. I thought we’d get a record deal, no record labels really called us. So I just started my own record company last year and just doing it myself with the fans supporting it. Like I said, it’s crazy to think we were talking about a possibility of a number one song this week and it looks like it’s trending that way. Yeah, man, it’s such a special song. A song with such a great message of treating women right, knowing their worth. I think what a great place, a great song for country radio right now of a messaging of knowing women’s worth. She’s somebody’s daughter. Make sure she’s special. 

And you talked about starting your own record label, and that’s the thing that I think going back for probably a little over a decade now, you’re seeing a lot more artists move more to this independent movement, and to do that without a major backing behind you, and you could come across potentially with a number one hit, that says something about the artist itself, in my opinion. 

Well, thanks for saying that. I had somebody tell me the other day, I was like, man, do you realize if you go number one, you’ll be the first artist in the history of country music to do that. Never as a artist self-funded independently, gotten their first number one. That’s never happened. I was just like, wow, I can’t believe that. What a crazy story. I think there’s a lot of artists that are independent. The only reason why that we are is because no major would sign up. Do I want a record deal? Yeah, man, I’m out here. Any record labels are listening, come on, hit me up. Let’s figure it out. But, you know, just doing it myself, there’s been a little extra pride in it, for sure. I’m just like, man, we didn’t get here because of big, you know, pockets. And we didn’t get here because of a fancy label name behind it. We got here because the song reacted with people. And that’s what country music is about, is songs that mean something. And that’s what I want to write. I want to write songs that have a lot of weight, songs that have a good meaning behind them. And so if you come out to the show, you’re going to get a lot of real-life country music, songs about me and my life, my family, where I came from, just like a lot of people out in the audience. I feel like if I can write something about my little town or something that moves me emotionally, it’s going to hit somebody. 

Another thing I wanted to mention about you artists is how in tune you guys get with the songwriting. But when you guys are out here on the road and you’re touring a lot of time and in between the travel from city to city and on the bus and in the hotel rooms and what not, you guys have a lot of down time to write. You know, you take the Martin or the old Gibson and you just kind of tinker around. You know, do you got anything new kind of you’ve been working on, getting ready to head to the studio eventually to start recording again? 

Yeah man, we’re wanting new music ASAP. Obviously, when this goes number one, we would’ve loved to have a song out sooner, but we’re just so busy. It’s hard to find the time to even record or get in the studio. Yeah, we can write songs, but if you can’t get in the, I recorded songs all the way back in April with the band and everything, and I just haven’t even had time to go in with my producer and actually sing them, because it just hasn’t been enough time to record the band on them. So, it’s just, we’re so busy right now and finding time to just actually sing a vocal has been very difficult, but we do have a new song that I’m very excited about. It’s gonna be our new single, hopefully over the next month and a half or so, we’re gonna be able to make this announcement and get people excited about it. It’s a song that kind of tells my journey of the tough time that I went through, you know, losing my record label. And, you know, what I found out in that tough time is that you can become stronger in the hardship. You know, you can get, you can overcome things if you just keep working at it and working at it, keeping your head down and not worrying about everybody around you because, you know, life’s hard. At the end of the day, not only, not just music, but just in general, there’s millions of people out there that are going through tough times, but you come out stronger because you learn. And that’s what this next song is kind of about. It’s called Tough People. It’s kind of the first time I’ve been to talk about it. You know, we haven’t released it yet. We haven’t really told anybody about it, but it’s a new song that I’m very excited about. And I can’t wait to get it out, start teasing it over on my social media pages. So everybody gives me a follow, a little plug, you know, Drew Baldrige Music on my Facebook and Instagram and TikTok. You’re going to start seeing a piece. 

As you talked about, COVID hit and then the bottom kind of fell out. But man, when you climb back to the top of the mountain, as you encroach on a number one hit as an independent artist, I mean, that view from the top looking down must be probably the most beautiful view an artist has ever seen. 

Yeah, man, it’s such a blessing. I don’t even know how to explain it. I’ve had so many friends hit me up and say, man, it’s happening. Like, are you going to go number one this week? And I just don’t think it’s really hit me yet because it’s not technically official, official until Saturday at midnight. But it is still like, man, it is just a blessing to be where we’re at. And I’m just not taking any moment for granted. This might be the only time I’ll ever get, you know, like, yeah, we hope we have multiple number ones and we keep going and everything’s hunky dory. But I mean, music business is fickle, man. You don’t know. You’re high one day, you’re low the next, and you just hope that you can do it again. So I’m just not taking this for granted. I’m trying to enjoy this ride of this week of thinking, hey, right now we have the number one song in the country. If it closes out that way on Saturday on the chart, we have it. That’s a blessing that I’ll never take for granted. 

Drew, do you have any final thing to say to your fans? This is a free concert being put on at Market Street Park in Huntingburg. You know, Haley Payne is going to open for you taking the stage from 6 to 8 and then of course you’re going to take the stage and play from 8.30 until they shut the street down basically. You got anything to say to your fans or anybody out there? 

 Obviously it’s a big celebration for me and my band, the possibility of going number one. I mean, how many times can Huntingburg say that, hey, the artist with the number one song is in our street this week, in the whole country, and I just think that’s really cool. I’m excited to bring this song to y’all, and I’m excited to celebrate with you guys. Obviously, She’s Somebody’s Daughter is just one of the many songs we’ll play and we have a lot of fun planned out for you guys. Lots of fun covers. If you like old-school country music we’re gonna be bringing some of that too. So we’d love to see everybody there. Come on out. We’re gonna have a great time and if you can’t make it we understand but if you can come on bring your boots. We’re gonna be dancing. It’s gonna be fun. 

Alright, Drew Baldridge, congratulations. Good luck and rock it on tomorrow night at Market Street Park in Huntingburg for the 4th Friday’s. The free concert is kind of the precursor to Saturday night’s Red, White and Brauen Music Festival. 

Appreciate you man, we’ll see you all there.