We appreciate you listening to Big Machine Radio. I am Becca, sitting here talking to Aaron Lewis
about his brand new album, State I'm In. So this next song, I think that you kind of have a
reputation for poking the bear and pointing the finger at today's country music. And I wonder,
with this song, it could be taken as a shots fired kind of thing, or it could simply just be taken as
you know what, that's what's happening, but it ain't me. I think that if I was to be honest about
it, please do, I would have to say that there's a probably a little bit of both. My biggest problem
with today's new country is that the word country should not be in the title. And that in doing so,
you've abandoned an entire genre of music that had been self-sustaining itself for decades,
and you've abandoned it completely. I mean, it's tough to find an artist these days that you could
actually draw a line backwards to the greats of yesteryear, or any sort of traditional tie to what
was. Hold on, there goes a bus. Again, we are coming to you from Aaron's back porch, so you
know what, it's as real as it gets. It's interesting because I mean, I listened to this album, and I
would consider it completely stone cold traditional country, and yet in some ways I think that you feel
like an outsider in this format, not because of where you came from, but just because of the type
of music you're making. Well, unfortunately, that's where the industry and the machine and
everything else comes into play. And when record labels aren't pushing and offering music that
has a tie to what was country music, and they're part of playing this whole game of pushing the
envelope as to how pop country can actually get, again, you're abandoning a genre of music that
was around long before you were, and who said that was okay? Well, let me ask you, what do you
say to people that feel as though things have to evolve or they die? There's a lot of arguments
that could be made on so many levels, because it could be said that that's being said these days
in the political arena as well. Right. And there could be a lot of arguments made that there's a
reason why this country has been the greatest country in the world for over 200 years,
and every other place in the world wants to come here. I've traveled the world. Right. You know,
I've heard people from all over the world, their dream is to come to America. And it's still to
this day, even though from the inside out we're truly trying our hardest to destroy it. But
would the country thing evolve to something that is unrecognizable to the definition of the genre?
Sounds like something died there anyways.
Okay. And I was just playing devil's advocate because I hear both sides of the argument all
the time. You know, evolve or die. Right. Something did die. Country music. Where'd it go?
Right. But by whose definition? Everybody that was listening.
I'm just asking. Everybody that was perfectly content with what country music was.
Okay. And the tonal qualities and the instrumentation and the, everything that I
ran from as a kid because I was force fed that music. You know, there was no Barney,
there was no Kidz Bop, there was no anything that was kid. Back then, you listened to what the adults
were listening to, period, and you kept your mouth shut about it if you knew it was good for you.
Unfortunately for me, that was Barry Manilow, so.
It depended on what house I was in.
No, I guess I just sort of think about, I listen to everybody debate back and forth,
and I've had the pleasure of speaking with some of the legends, and I've had the pleasure of
speaking with some of the new country, and I don't know where the argument stands because you,
I mean, you look at where country music is.
I think it's great that all of these artists are having success. I think that's great. That's
wonderful. To be able to do what we do, we're very lucky to do it. I don't have a problem with
that. I have a problem with the abandonment of a genre. That's the problem. I have no problem
with anything else. And there's plenty of frequencies out there and radio bandwidth,
and there's certainly room for both. Every market should have both. And it's twice the stations to
work with for the record labels.
Some people seem to think that the reason that country music has gone the way it's gone or
evolved the way that it has is a lot to do with streaming and the way that people consume music,
because it's almost a genre-less world out there where a playlist can have Drake and Aaron Lewis
and Barbra Streisand, and people are sort of creating their own mishmash of what they want
to listen to. And so they're no longer looking at it like, okay, here's my country music, and
here's my hip-hop music, and here's my whatever music. It just all is.
And I certainly understand the consumer effect that everything at your fingertips
has had. You know, people don't buy a full record anymore and look at it as an entire piece of
something. You know, that's lost. We're sitting here talking about how this whole record encompasses
a whole time and moment and state that I find myself in, encapsulated into a record. You lose
that if you only cherry-pick songs that you've either heard on the radio or heard in your buddy's
car. I've never, ever written 12 individual songs that didn't go together to make something bigger.
Right. You're not like an a la carte artist.
No.
Yeah.
Never have been.
Yeah, and I think most don't want to be.
So, the downloading thing and the cherry-picking thing has definitely affected me,
because I don't write that way.
Right.
And you're missing something from the collection of music that I've put out as a collection if
you don't receive it as a collection and listen to it as a collection at least once before you
start bouncing around and finding your favorite songs.
Right.
Well, I appreciate the conversation on It Keeps On Workin'. I think that everybody's
always going to debate where we're at, what's the state of country music, what's right, what's wrong.
I don't think that it has nothing to do with there not being room or a place for all of
this success. It's undeniable. It just deserves to have its own space.
Well, I'm glad you clarified it. And with that in mind, here is Aaron Lewis and It
Keeps On Workin' off his State I'm In album, which is available now on Big Machine Radio.