Scotty McCreery Credits Childhood Lessons for His Two No. 1 Hits

Scotty McCreery never imagined, after winning American Idol in 2011, that he would be faced with so many disappointments just a few years later. After releasing his freshman Clear as Day shortly after winning Idol, which included the hit single, “Love You This Big,” McCreery released his sophomore See You Tonight in 2013, which included both “See You Tonight” and “Feelin’ It.”

After that, McCreery didn’t have another hit on the radio, until “Five More Minutes,” released in 2017. The song, which was from his 2018 Seasons Change album became his first No. 1 hit. With five years between records, many people would have given up, or chosen a new direction. Thankfully, the lessons McCreery learned as a child were exactly what he needed to remind him to keep moving forward.

“I could go [back] to middle school in my seventh grade year, getting cut from my baseball team,” McCreery recalled at a media event. “And I was just like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

“I worked my tail off for an entire year,” he continued. “[I] tried out again in eighth grade, and I was the No. 1 pitcher and our clean-up batter that whole year.”

It was that childhood memory that propelled the North Carolina native, even when his music career looked like it was less than promising.

“One of the things I’ve learned through my whole life is that things are never on a straight line,” McCreery maintained. “It’s never always gonna be up, it’s never always gonna be down. You’ve just got to keep rolling. And I can think back to plenty of times in my life where I got knocked down and had to get back up again. 2016 was that year for me, musically.”

The lessons are ones he keeps with him now, even as his career is moving full-steam ahead.

“There’s a lot of moments in life where you get knocked down, but you can have one of two reactions: you can just say, ‘Oh, that stinks and I’ll never do that again.’ Or you can pick yourself up, work harder, and go at it again,” said McCreery. “And that’s kind of what I did back then, and what I did these last couple years.”

McCreery followed “Five More Minutes” with “This Is It,” which also landed at the top of the charts. McCreery’s current single, “In Between,” was just released. Download the single on iTunes.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Scott Legato