Good article on how it's like with Kenny on the road. It's cool Pat Green had the experience with both Chesney and Wilson!Source: 2theadvocate.com
Entertainment writer Fresh from being opening act for the biggest tour of the year, Texas singer-songwriter Pat Green brings his solo tour back to Baton Rouge for an Oct. 27 show at the Varsity Theatre.
Green, whose hits include "Wave On Wave" and "Baby Doll," saw his opening act slot on a 44-date trek with country stars Kenny Chesney and Gretchen Wilson as a golden opportunity.
"Taking my little independent band that's somehow creeping around radio and putting it on the big stage was pretty cool," he said before a show at the Georgia Theatre in Athens. "It was a big deal, very lucky. Hopefully, it'll give us a leg up."
Green had a half-hour to make his mark with the Chesney and Wilson fans who filled venues ranging from about 10,000 to 55,000 seats. He knew he had to strike fast and true.
"You have to," Green said. "If you don't, well, you miss your shot. I felt like, from the first day we stepped on stage, that we had a tight package. During the time that we had allotted, we kicked their teeth in as long as we could."
Offstage was fun, too.
"It was a great kind of summer-camp vibe," Green said. "Everybody was having a good time. Nobody missed out and you just woke up in a new city and did it all over."
Green's no newcomer to the music game, but growing artist that he is, he learned a thing or two from headliners Chesney and Wilson.
"I been watching Kenny on TV since I was in my freshman year in college," Green said. "You gotta pay your dues, that's what I took from him. And from Gretchen, I guess, if you can catch that lightning in a bottle and find that one song (Wilson's 2004 hit, "Redneck Woman"), or write that one song, that changes the world, then you can get to the top pretty fast. So, as far as I know, I'm doing the right thing."
The right thing for Green isn't a gimmick or a marketing plan.
"More than anything," the singer explained, "if you concentrate on the most important things, the studio and the stage, then the rest kind of falls in naturally. The show and then the studio, and if you don't get the connection, you're not gonna get anywhere in the business. You can't have one without the other."
A link in the great Texas singer-songwriter tradition, Green caught the bug for writing songs from fellow Texans Jerry Jeff Walker and Robert Earl Keen. Mainstream singer-songwriter stars Bruce Springsteen and Dave Matthews inspired him, too.
"It was the songwriter that first caught me," Green said. "And then the songwriter up on a huge stage, in front of all the lights and people, really solidified that was what I wanted to do."
Green is about to enter a new phase in his career. He's left the New York-based Republic Records and is considering offers from major labels in Nashville. Breaking a country act such as himself from New York was just too difficult, he said.
Republic, Green said, "got tired of running into the same walls. We were like, 'OK, we gotta make this thing happen down in Nashville.' "
This sort of thinking represented a change of mind for Green.
"I thought for the longest time that Nashville was the enemy," he admitted. "But, really, there's a certain few people in Nashville that run the music business in directions that I don't like. So long as I steer clear of them it's all cool.
"I'm not trying to be corporate," Green said. "I'm not trying to sell out. I'm just trying to get my music in the largest number of ears I can get it in. In order to do that, you have to navigate that slippery side of the business. That's something I wasn't prepared to deal with when I was 18. Now that I have a wife and kid and I'm 30, I'm like, 'OK, I can deal with this.' "
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