'Purpose and Peace Over Everything': Country Hitmaker Blanco Brown Talks New Ballad Single, Teases Forthcoming Album (Exclusive)
Country music hitmaker Blanco Brown recently dropped his brand new single, "I'll Never," a heartfelt ballad reminiscent of classics like Lonestar's "Amazed," or "I Love The Way You Love Me" by John Michael Montgomery. PopCulture.com had a chance to catch up with Brown, and we picked his brain a number of things, including the new track and his favorite "southern" instrument. During our conversation, the producer-turned-country music star also shared some details about how "purpose and peace over everything" has become the mantra he lives by.
"I love the record, man. As soon as I wrote it, I was like, this is one of those records that's going to hold a special place in people hearts," Brown told us, recalling writing and recording the demo for "I'll Never" in just one day. "I literally went in the booth in L.A. and came back out with the whole song and we filmed it. We filmed it nonstop. That's how quick I wrote the record, it was still rolling from the time I went in. And when I say wrote it, I mean, I record the vocals at the same time." Next, Brown headed back to Music City to finish up the track and get it just perfect.
"I went back in the studio and cut some vocals over for the most part because I just demoed it and I wanted to do it on my Lewitt microphone that I like using, my 640," he explained. "It was magical in the studio. I went to Nashville and got finished producing the record out, but I started the record with my homies Biscuit and Butter in LA. They named Biscuit and Butter and for the longest time, I didn't even think about it," Brown then joked, "I was just like, 'biscuit... butter...' And I said, 'Olay, so y'all going to name me ham...' It's a recipe."
In addition to sharing the story behind "I'll Never," Brown also shared a little about his next album, specifically noting the lyrics to a new song titled "Sooner or Later," which he wrote while recovering from a terrible 2020 motorcycle accident. "I wrote this song out of depression after being in the motorcycle accident, not knowing if I was going to walk again," he said. "The words are, 'Standing on broken promises, betting on yourself when you had nothing to win. Looking forward to those rainy days. Remember jumping in grandpa's 4x4, mudding with friends. But those old days, you'll never forget, time was never spent wasting them.'"
Bringing it around to the chorus, the next section of the song says, "Sooner or later you'll have to ride along. Sooner or later you'll have to learn to grow. So take those childhood memories and turn them into your dreams and know that it's never too late, but sooner or later you'll learn to love yourself. That's how we grow. That's how we grow. That's how we show up."
While the music Brown crafts are some of the catchiest songs you'll hear on any side of the Mississippi, the real joy for him comes from relating to his fans. "I just like to share my testimony. People need to hear it," he said. "And I like to be vulnerable with folk. After my shows, I come out and take pictures, touch hands... I'm nothing without my fans."
With Brown acting as a producer and an artist, we wondered: What could be his favorite Southern instrument to include in his songs? He replied with quick enthusiasm: "Spoons." "I play spoons," he said. "I play spoons during my shows. If you listen to the songs in detail, you hear spoons on just about every song. I play spoons on a lot of stuff." So where does that love for the spoons come from? "I'm like Old Baptist. Old Baptist church," Brown said, revealing that it was growing up in a small-town church that helped cultivate his interest in, not just the spoons, but music in general. "I'm talking about, the wood creaking and the pulpits and everything."
Spilling some secrets from behind the scenes of his production process, Brown shared, "I'm always breaking the stuff down in my head before I even start. A lot of the album songs that I worked on for this new project came from voice notes from 2015 all the way up until last year. Voice notes that I had on my phone. So I have the original voice notes from 2015 and so on and so on. That comes all the way up to this point. And I think it'll be dope for people to hear how these ideas started."
Discussing letting his fans in on how the new album came together, Brown added, "I'm definitely sharing it. I documented and I filmed a lot of it around this time around just so that people could have that experience to feel like they was there in the process of making it. I'm talking about from the first idea to the last production, coming to Nashville... to produce these records... But you'll see these records start from a voice note to a piano and just guitar to me adding fake drums to going into real drums into the session, that's this whole project."
While Brown's accident and recovery, and the global pandemic during which he endured them, offered opportunities for him to be creatively inspired, he is careful to explain that none of these shaped his current songs or sound. "My mission statement is and always has been 'purpose over everything.' I put my purpose before anything. And it's another P word that is so important within the purpose. I put that before everything also, you can't tarnish my purpose and if my peace is being messed with... You got to go too. 'Purpose and peace over everything.'"
He continued, "I won't sacrifice or negotiate one or the other. Man, so I try to put that into music. I try to put that in everything I do. So the way my songs and everything have been shaped, they come with a message first. And I always tell people my purpose is bigger than the songs... But I'm glad that people get to hear me and hear a glimpse of some of the things that go through my head and the songs that God put on my heart. At the same time, it ain't nothing like coming to see me live and perform these songs."
Finally, Brown boiled his entire list of creative priorities down to "performing," saying, "When I'm performing, I'm actually given a testimony. So I take this stage platform as if I'm, I'm in front of a church giving my testimony. I can walk. I've made it through these struggles. I've been through this. Don't dim your light. Whiskey and champagne, don't mix. Find you another glass of champagne to toast with. Because those have always been celebratory ways of toasting the chipper things in life. All the way down to being on Parmalee song, 'I love you, just the way God made you.'"
"Everything about my career has been purposeful," he continued, then citing another recent track he worked on, "even all the way down to 'Trap Still Bumping' with T.I. If you listen to my verse, I'm breaking it down. I said, "Growing up in the hood, I was misunderstood. Just a young black boy with no bank candy lady, like two doors down, trapped in the back of the same house. I remember the first time I saw a dope sack, I was flipping that Kool-Aid in a Ziploc bag project baby. Never thought I ever had a chance to change. Look at me now. Country Superstar doing my thing. Won't he do it? I'm always on that message."
For more on what Blanco Brown has going on, check out his official website by clicking here. Additionally, his upcoming touring dates can be found here. Keep it locked to PopCulture.com for more great country music news, reviews, and interviews!
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