Tracy Byrd

We caught up with country singer, Tracy Byrd while he was home in Beaumont, Texas – the small town where he grew up and still makes his home. Tracy was eager to discuss his new CD, “Different Things.” 

Northmusic: “Different Things” was released in October 2006. This is your first CD on a label you co-own. Was it different recording for your own label after working for large companies like MCA/RCA?  
 

Tracy: It was the first one on our own label, it’s been quite an experience!  I enjoyed the making of this record more than I think I ever have, just because we were on our own, unencumbered, in the studio without any outside influence. It was a fun time to be creative and make some good music, but there is nothing at all bad about MCA or RCA. They were just wonderful. They gave me the opportunity to be able to come out and do these things on my own.  We had such a successful career through all those years and had hit records and sold albums and became well known and that enabled us to do this independent label. But it’s been real nice – just the freedom has been nice. 

NORTHMUSIC:  You are also using a distribution company for this CD? Why is this important?  

Tracy:  Yes, we hooked up with a distribution company called A2M which is underneath the Handleman Corporation and Handleman has long been the largest distributor of country music with their ties to Wal-Mart. They work closely with Wal-Mart and that’s where about 70% of all country music is sold. So we teamed up with those guys for distribution and it’s been a good relationship. They’ve got a lot of great ideas. 

NORTHMUSIC:  Given the trend toward downloading music from the internet, what effect do you think this will have on the music industry? Are we seeing the end of CDs? 

Tracy:  I believe that that time is coming, probably quicker than we even think it is, although CD sales are still pretty strong.  More and more people are converting over to the digital age, into the IPODs and MP3 players, and you’ve got great sites, not just ITunes and Napster.  There are all kinds of good, established sites where you can go legally to download the music. I think the people that really love music are already doing it and your casual listening people will soon be doing it too. It’s just so convenient.  I do it myself.  I sit right here at home at the computer and go search and listen and preview the music before I buy it. It’s just the wave of the future, it’s the way its going to be. So I think, yes, the CD at some point will be ancient history.

NORTHMUSIC: They’ll be gone, just like the vinyl records went? 

Tracy:  I still have all my vinyls. I’m starting to run out of room to keep all the different formats, but I still need to have everything. I’ve kept all my vinyls and I still have a turntable I listen to them on. 

You know it’s just hard to beat sticking that little IPod in your pocket and take all that music just any where you want to!

NORTHMUSIC:  There are some of us that still enjoy having the CD in our hand! 

Tracy:  Yeah, you enjoy the liners and the pictures, which I do. Now with most of the digital records though you can actually print that out if you want to. 

NORTHMUSIC: Some of the best songs are the one’s on an album that don’t get released as singles. Will they still be heard? 

Tracy: Right, that’s been my way of thinking my whole life.  I always like the album cuts better than I like the hits. 

NORTHMUSIC:  You co-wrote 2 of the songs on the CD and selected 9 more from a variety of writers. You must have lots of music pitched to you. How do you decide which ones to include in the album? 

Tracy:  Yeah, there are thousands, I really don’t know how many we hear. Maybe we need to count them sometime! I have to have listened to 2000 songs for this CD. That’s the hard part, because quite honestly there are a lot of bad songs out there, or mediocre songs. You really need to stay on top of your game when you are listening to that many. Keep your ears ready and your mind open just to find the good ones. My buddy, Mike Geiger, a writing buddy of mine, co-produced the record with me and he probably listened to a couple of thousand,  Also, an old friend, a guy in my office Mike Taliaferro, has a great ear for songs and he probably listened to about a thousand himself. So there were a lot of songs that came across our table and I think we found 11 good ones. 

NORTHMUSIC:  How do you decide which songs are going to be released as singles, like “Cheapest Motel”?  Do you know right away or do you decide after listening to the completed CD? 

Tracy:  Well, you know, you bounce around a lot. But on this one we pretty much knew which one. When we cut “Cheapest Motel” I pretty much knew that I wanted to come with that as the first single just because it sounded like a classic country song. I wanted not only to come with that but to make kind of a statement as we came out with this record about how serious and deep the music was. I didn’t want to come out with anything that was light or might reflect my past hits like “Watermelon Crawl” or “Ten Rounds” or “I’m From the Country” or like that.  I wanted to come with a pretty heavy, mature kind of ballad and “Cheapest Motel” just absolutely blew me away and is one of my favorites on the record. So it was pretty much established that was what we would come with as the first single. 

NORTHMUSIC:  Your music is a great mix of ballads, up-tempo songs and you throw in lots of humorous songs  – like :”Jose Curevo,” “The Truth About Men” and now “Saltwater Cowboy.” Is humor an important aspect of country music? 

Tracy: “Saltwater Cowboy” is. We are trying this week to decide what the next single will be and we’ve pretty much decided on “Saltwater Cowboy.” It has by far got the best acceptance.  You know I’ve been doing this stuff in the shows since early summer last year, way before the record came out. And “Saltwater Cowboy” has just got tremendous response from the live shows and I play a lot into that. I figure if people never heard the song before and I get that kind of response, it’s got something in it,  so more than likely that will be the next single. 

NORTHMUSIC:  I saw you on CMT’s 330 Sessions and you mentioned being in a movie, did you enjoy doing that. Do you like making videos? Do you have more planned? 

Tracy:  Yeah, I was in a movie called Radio Land Murders, a George Lukas film, but it wasn’t a big stretch for me, I played a singing cowboy in the 1930s, so it was kind of a natural for me in a way. And we’ve made, oh, over 20 videos, and I’ve always really enjoyed that process. There’s a lot to them.  They are really long days, but I’ve always really enjoyed making videos.

We’ve had a lot of songs during the years that leant themselves to great videos. We haven’t done any for this record yet, but if we decide on the next single we are going to try to get a video out on it. Whatever we decide, which looks like “Saltwater Cowboy”, I think it could be a great video. It will lend itself to the screen real well. 

NORTHMUSIC:  I really like the song “Before I Die.”  

Tracy:  I carried that song around for a long time. In Nashville, it’s called putting it on hold.  You get a hold on a song that you want to record and they don’t pitch it to anyone else. But I had that one for almost 3 ½ years before we ever recorded it. I never could get anyone at RCA to love it as much as I loved it, but when we got over here to do this independent record it was obvious right off the bat that I would cut “Before I Die”. It’s a beautiful, beautiful song. I love the sentiment in it and just about everyone feels like that at some point. 

NORTHMUSIC:  Are there things you still want to do?

Tracy:  Oh, you know, I’ve had a great career all ready, but I’m also not ready to see it go. I’m a huge fan of Merle Haggard and George Jones and George Strait and those guys and would like to continue my career much like theirs have done into my sixties (laughs). I love to sing and I don’t see any time when I won’t want to do it. I just want to keep making good records. 

NORTHMUSIC: Is performing live still your favorite part? 

Tracy:  Ah yeah, I’d have to say that’s the pay off for all the other times that you spend on the road. It’s just a couple of hours a night – you wait all day just for that. And that’s where you still get the most.  Number 1,  you love doing your singing with your band and everything especially when it is going and feeling right and then you have the adoration of the fans, the people that you made the music for. They love the music enough to come to the shows. It just all comes together up there. 

NORTHMUSIC:  What’s it like when they sing your songs with you or back to you? 

Tracy:  Oh, that’s the best. You get them singing back to you and you know that you’ve connected with them and the songs. If they’ve learned all the words to it, it’s just great. 

NORTHMUSIC:  What’s in the near future for you? 

Tracy:  Well, we hope get a video out with the next single and after that who knows. Maybe another single deep or maybe make another record will see.  

NORTHMUSIC: How about producing records for other country performers? 

Tracy:  That’s something I think I would be interested in if the right artist come along, you know, a real country artist. Someone really interested in cutting good records.  It would be something I would do. And I keep my ears open, when I’m out on the road and these local acts are opening the show for us, I go out there and listen to see if I could stumble on the next great country singer. I know he’s out there some where. Will see. 

NORTHMUSIC:  Will you be touring soon? 

Tracy: Oh yeah, we start back next weekend.  We got Augusta, Knoxville and we are out in Arizona and back to Texas for a couple of dates. Then Nashville and Georgia and 3 shows in Florida - we’re on the road again. I’m going to take a little more time off this year, ‘cause I just want more time with my kid and my family. But we’ll still work 65 to 70 shows which is a pretty good bit!