Jason Aldean stops by Today’s Country Radio for an interview with Kelleigh Bannen to talk about his upcoming album ‘GEORGIA’ and share the stories behind the songs—how Tyler Hubbard pitched him “Your Mama,” first hearing “Holy Water” while hanging out with FGL’s Brian Kelley and Ernest, and more. Tune in and listen to the interview with Jason Aldean in-full on-demand here.
Jason Aldean on Being His Own Worst Critic When It Comes to Songwriting
George Strait’s made a career on not writing anything. He’s just really good at finding songs. And my thing was, I moved to Nashville as a songwriter. I moved here and started writing for Warner Brothers, Warner Chappell. And that’s how I got to town. So I was the guy in there writing every day and writing a ton of songs. My problem was always and still is – it’s not that I don’t write or can’t write. I’m just my own worst critic.
Jason Aldean on How Tyler Hubbard Pitched Him “Your Mama”
The way that song kind of came on up was Tyler Hubbard from FGL kind of whenever we’re cutting a new album, he’ll hit me up and send me a few songs that he’s got. And he had just written a song. His wife was pregnant and they were having a little boy, or at least they were told they were having a little boy. And so Tyler goes in and he writes this song. Well, fast forward. Finds out that that little boy is not a little boy. It’s a little girl. So he was like, he was going to cut this song for his little boy that he ended up having a little girl.
Jason Aldean on How He First Heard “Holy Water” While Hanging Out with FGL’s Brian Kelley and Ernest
[Ernest] played [“Holy Water”] and I just lyrically thought it was so cool. And we were just at the beach at that time and it just kind of all made sense. And I just thought it was so well written and lyrically, I mean, just amazing. It kind of blew me away. And so that night, I’m like, “Who do I call to put the song on hold?” And so I ended up putting it on hold that night… I’m like, “Man, hey, text whoever you got to text at your publishing company.” And so I sent it to [my producer Michael] Knox that night. I’m like, “Check this out.” And so, but the funny thing was, it was the first night I’d ever met Ernest.
Jason Aldean on Donating to a Pediatric Hospital In His Hometown of Macon, GA
You hear all these stories about kids at St Jude’s and all these things. St Jude’s is unbelievable. And I’ve visited that hospital. We’ve donated to them. And I’m like, man. I just felt like Macon had this new children’s hospital that they were building and trying to give the people where I’m from a place to take their kids if anything ever happened. And I got to thinking, man, if I’m living there and something’s really wrong with my kid and I can’t travel to Memphis… to go do all that stuff. I mean here, we got Vanderbilt. In Nashville we have Vanderbilt, which is a great hospital. In Macon, you really don’t have that. And so I really kind of started wanting to pour everything I had into that.
Jason Aldean on His Motto for Donating to Charity
I feel like you do that stuff because you want to and do it behind the scenes and whatever. And… other than doing concerts where we try to raise money for it, that’s kind of always been my motto on that stuff.
