Tracy Lawrence Talks Number One Hits, Surviving Gun Shot, Philanthropy, and New EP | On The Record

well it didn't take long for Tracy Lawrence to get discovered after moving to Nashville only a few months into his move he was performing a showcase when he was discovered by the man who would become his manager and it would ultimately lead to Tracy recording his very first album so in December I was on that show and uh some Executives from Atlantic and the gentleman who eventually became my managers came to see another person that was on the show and they liked me better and the wheel started turnings I cut 10 songs in two days and did vocals on them and had three number one records in the top 10 so from the time I rolled into town to that record being cut was 7 months in 1996 Tracy would release what would become one of the biggest songs of his career Time Marches On The Song Chronicles the life of a family with many pop culture references and for Tracy releasing it was a bit of a risk and I knew that it would have the biggest shock factor that it would be a massive massive record because of the shock factor of it or it would die a violent death and there was no in between and it did just exactly what I hoped it would do after three and a half decades into his career Tracy is busier than ever with his own podcast new EP and one hectic tour schedule and that's just the way he likes it I still love the change of environment all the time it's never boring it's always moving forward and I like to be engaged in what's happening around me I feel like if I uh if I sit down too long and I get complacent I it's just not a healthy thing for me [Music] sticks and St Ain all that makes it home with my and Li eyes and all the best Lord know she's number ones we're talking over three decades as one of the best recording artists in country music what a career welcome to on the record from the John Deere stage we are visiting with Tracy Lawrence it is so good to see you it is I always look forward to my time with you a I do always interesting and great questions and I love visiting with you well I love visiting with you you have been on our list for the show for quite some time so I'm glad we were able to grab you because I know you are a busy busy man you know we rolled in with some of those videos I feel like you know seeing sticks and stones and Alibi Texas tornado I feel like Tracy Lawrence this is is your life and that's wow and it does bring flashbacks back I I go back and think about those songs in the early 90s and and uh just what a great era that was all the music had such great personality and and all the all the guys were all friends and we were always happy when we saw each other out on the road and everybody was always talking about their new videos when they came out and you're always interested in everybody's new music so it was just a very fun time filled with camaraderie and and no cell phones it wasn't I think that was no social media there was none of that stuff actually had to talk to people yeah it was it was a great time you know I I I was telling you before I went to camera I'm like I went down a rabbit hole because I you know when Sticks and Stones came out right this is your debut it was 1991 do you remember who you bumped out of number one on the charts was it Sammy Kershaw Colin Ray but Sammy Kershaw was right behind Colin Ray Colin Ray was up there with love me now Sammy will tell you to this day he uh he had a lot of records that stopped it too because he had I think he's a little bitter about it is that he's still holding those Gres still he hadn't let it go yet I love him but you did you mentioned you know that era that time I mean it was Colin Ray Sammy Kershaw right oh gosh Tucker oh Tanya Tucker was still in the game back then I mean there's Neil McCoy was coming into it burkson Dunn didn't come till 93 I tell the story all the time you go back to ' 89 and that was really I'd been playing in Louisiana working a music circuit for a while and and uh in ' 89 you had Mark chessnut and Allan Jackson and Clint Black back and Travis trit and Vince Gil who else came out that year that g Brooks so that was that was kind of the Catalyst when I knew that music was changing and that there was something happening in Nashville and that was when I made my mind up I I left in the fall of 90 and right after that and I came to Nashville because I knew something was happening here so you were playing where previous cuz I know obviously Texas born Arkansas raised right living in Louisiana doing the doing the music thing you were you with the band at the time or you were so long I was with a band called Phoenix and we were kind of play in a little circuit but all the guys that I was with were older they all had jobs and families and all was like a part time hustle for them I was still working and and the reason that I had to make the decision is I I was I decided that I was going to go back to college and I was re-enrolled in Louisiana Tech Rustin and I was going to go back and finish my degree in mass communication and then all this stuff was happening I'm like you know if I don't leave here now I'm going to want I'm getting married and have a couple kids and you're going to be I'm going to be set and I'm like I got to go and I got to go now that's interesting so you're really at a Crossroads from what I understand too growing up I I own Tracy Lawrence as a little guy as a little boy in in in Arkansas were you that kid that was into sports and was music always kind of on your mind uh music was always on my mind I wasn't a real athletic kid I did play football in junior high school but I never could take the hits I mean when I was a kid I just couldn't take the impacts I played baseball through high school but I was also the kid I had this big dream I wanted to fly and I would build these Contraptions out of sticks and paper and material and stuff try to fly off the top of the house you you know I've hurt myself a lot I fell out of a lot of trees I was I like to climb to the top of everything sometimes that didn't work out well for did Mom and and was it your stepfather also kind of felt like you need to stay here and and do this or were they kind of like don't go off to Nashville don't do they knew I I when I right before I left for Louisiana uh I came home to see the family before I made the journey and and their words please go get this out of your system and come back and get a job really wow I said I'm not coming back and had no intentions of coming back but you know it's such a scary thing and and you know as a young person I I I I'd not traveled I mean I wasn't very very versed in the world uh the glass Club I play I played took up a collection I had $700 in my pocket and all the things that I thought were relevant in my beat up old car and I'd never been to Nashville before the farthest I'd been in Tennessee was Memphis so I didn't know the landscape but I'd watched enough CMT and and was aware of the music business I was a pretty big student of the history of country music and about the current people that were producing Rec and the songwriters and the musicians I mean I was I was I tried to stay up on what was going on but making that move is terrifying when you're a young person I that did you did you have anybody here when you made the move there was one guy from back home that I called when I got to town I'd called his mother and he was a struggling musician too and he didn't stay much longer but I did sleep on his couch for a while uh but the first thing I did was just get a job doing construction I think I was hanging siding on a warehouse in in Portland Tennessee I decided really early on that I didn't uh I didn't come to Nashville to work construction so I got a a job at a temporary service so I could just kind of pick up what I needed as I went along and I'd work a couple of days here I tried to go to every music venue where songwriters and Road musicians hung out and I started meeting people networking started writing songs and kind of understanding how things work I never really knocked on a door I didn't go to a record label I didn't go do a bunch of demos I wound up over at um at a place called live at libes in dville Kentucky in December of 19 90 and it was a separate Club in an opery house and radio station out of Kentucky broad broadcast back in Nashville on Saturday night so they would have you know the house band would have the opening hour that had Young Artists and you'd get up and do a couple of songs and then they have their headliner some Executives from Atlantic and the gentleman who eventually became my managers came to see another person that was on the show and they liked me better and the wheel started turning I did a showcase at the blueberg cafe in January where they agreed to sign me to Atlantic I signed the paperwork on my contract in May when I walked into the studio cut Sticks and Stones I cut 10 songs in 2 days and did vocals on them and had three number one records in the top 10 so from the time I rolled into town to that record being cut was seven months so I was going to say about six or seven months seven months wow and I know that there were some hurdles I'll say quote unquote I want to talk about that a lot more here with Tracy Lawrence when we come back on the record I was dropping her off back at her hotel and three young men approached me and open the door and have a pistol Stu to your head so it was pretty scary saw you dance your ground to on the record spending time with Tracy Lawrence and seeing there I see it now and if the world had a front porch boy what great songs and I'm going to get to those songs in just a bit prior uh to the break you talked about what six seven months before you landed your deal here here in Nashville yes um so you have the album you're coming out with this debut album you're in Nashville back then in the '90s and I even say it now I I mean Nashville is a little seedy we're just a little lot more congested back in the '90s yeah a lot um but back in the 90s very very c a little bit more sparse an altercation happened you're approached by these guys you know that was actually that I just finished the background vocal so it was right after I'd cut the record I mean as soon as we got stuff down I went and got vocals done I was I finished the background vocal on the very last track so it would have been pretty quick within that that week uh and uh I had a friend that I grew up with that came through town uh that just stopped in and I went out to some the bars that I hung out at uh like gabes and the Broken Spoke just seeing the musicians that I spent time with the little Dives that I hung out at and I was dropping her off back at her hotel and three young men approached me and open the door and have a pistol stuck to your head so it was pretty scary I wind up getting shot uh hit four times solid twice Graz in a couple of spots I've got I fought with the guys they turned on me empty two pistols and she was able to get away I didn't take the time to physically heal I didn't get the mental help that I needed because I was bitter I would I used to sit down in the shadows off Music Row at night with a pistol I would have I plan on taking care of them if I would have seen them uh and how much different would my life be if I'd done that but you know we've learned a lot about mental health over the years and about PTSD and how people cope with that and I've I wish that I would have had those tools early on because they caused me a lot of problems with relationships and things with my career anger issues and things that I struggle with for a long time that I've been able to finally work past some of that stuff going back I mean this happens to you be prior to the album coming out at any point I mean first of all Lucky to survive second were you thinking I'm out I'm going to go back home well uh I didn't think that I was more afraid that if I didn't get back fast that I would lose my slot wow and and then I wouldn't be viable cuz they everything was starting to roll and so you worry about that so not really dealing with it at that time was it just throwing yourself into the music because this is Run and Gun and the hits happen right out of the box I often hear from a lot of you guys when you say this happens you you're not aware when a song hits of really what's going on you're being pulled in every single Direction was it really pretty much having gone through what you went through and sustaining those bullets and having those injuries on top of everything happening was it hold on hold your breath and just go a hit record is like nothing that you can imagine uh being able to take that ride and experience it uh it's something really special I mean and it's almost an addictive thing anybody that's ever been to it will tell you that you can kind of feel things moving a little bit as you get in the 40s record gets a little traction and by the time you hit top 20 it's getting a little bit more intense there's more people singing back top 10's when you really start to feel whether it's reacting or not top five when you hit number one you can feel the intensity I mean when you kick that song off at night I and and the roller coaster of all that you get used to that and I I got on that ride for about 10 years where you're you're experiencing that that ebb and flow of it peeking out and then backing off and getting into heavy rotation and then coming with another single and and you're moving from one project to the next I mean you're shooting a video you're getting ready you're doing radio tour plus you're working all the time and at the same time you're already by the time you get two singles into that record you're already putting songs together and working on the next album getting ready to go back in the studio and there over about a 10-year period you're able to amass a body of work to have a song Hit it's it's like winning the lottery when you have song after song after song like you did what an amazing career as I said when we roll in with that if the world had a front porch boy what a song what a statement at the time and coming out with this video too uh I remember the the virtual reality goggle record did you know that well I you know when we uh I I co-wrote the song and I thought the song was really special but when we started doing treatments on that and that that concept kind of came across it seemed so interesting to me because it did uh it did talk a lot about things going on in the world and how we should all be longing for a simpler time and boy have we gone way past all that now but you know it was it was such an interesting time uh you know so much digital technology was changing the video world was changing I mean that had such a huge impact on our careers back then video was a huge part of it um and we spent a lot more money on videoos back then we do now I mean they were a big production thing I mean we'd go off and do two-day shoots and they were yeah it was it was it was like movie quality movies back there were many movies me blowing up boats and stuff you know which you know vinil always said when you know Reba is doing a video like uh oh you know how long am I going to be out and on location that's how it's going to work like I said you hit one you hit two you kept hitting them Bam Bam song after song comes 1996 Time Marches On signature song for you blew up absolutely uh made a producer change then and and it was the right time to get a different sound and I was such a big fan of Don Cook and what he had done with Brooks and dun and the the collection of musicians that he put together he had he had a different vibe going on and I really thought that was awesome and time March's own came to me because of that change I think it's one of the best written songs that I ever recorded uh because it says so much about life in a 3 minute I mean you're mixing multiple generations of a family just the craftsmanship of the song and the melodic structure of it by itself but what really drove me to that song you know um I remember when if the world had a front porch came out the song actually said the word cuss in it and I had a radio station out west that wouldn't play that song because it said the word cuss not a cuss word the word c and I knew that format was getting a little bit different and uh it it was the first song that I ever heard that talked about smok and dope and I knew that it would have the biggest shock factor that it would be a massive massive record because of the shock factor of it or it would die violent death and there was no in between and and it did just exactly what I hoped it would do three weeks at number one massive hit one of the most iconic songs in country music history Bobby brck song you had also had a Bobby brck song Texas tornado prior to that and and for people who may not know at home I mean you just didn't get a Bobby song I mean that was like right you had to have proven yourself what you of course were at that time was Don Cook the guy that that brought it to you or did you find it uh Bobby brought it in to Don's office my memor is a little cloudy at times but I I think Bobby had just finished it up cuz Sony tree they have their their demo room right there in the building so he had just bought it up to Don's brought it up to Don's office uh and I I mean I remember hearing it for the first time and it just absolutely blew me away you knew sometimes it's insane sometimes you just know and and we really hooked it to I mean you can tell in the studio when when you really pull one off I mean you there's something about a hit record you can just tell yeah we're visiting with Tracy Lawrence and I want to talk about uh not only we're going back and talking about all the success that you've had but really I like to say using your powers for good I want to talk about your your work as a humanitarian just one of the best in this business stay with us when we come back more with Tracy Lawrence for an artist own label first single out of the box it was virtually unheard of for something like that to happen so it was very validating me not only as an artist but as a businessman record visiting with Tracy Lawrence and boy love that song Find Out Who Your Friends Are and I felt like with that song I I mean again you're charting songs it felt like you were just Bam Bam just putting out song after song they're hitting radio it had been a few years since you had been at the top of the countdown I feel like with this song released back in 2006 that you really made a statement in so many ways including your buddies on this one speak about how you found this song this song came from Sony tree it was another one of those uh things I cut a lot of stuff from them over the years Casey bethard I mean he's had a lot of success and I've recorded a lot of his songs over the years great mid-tempo I I remember going in recording that song uh with no intentions of it being a duo or a trio and when I got it done I'd finished my vocal on it and I was listening to it one night and I'm like you know Tim and Kenny and I have talked about doing something together for a long time because our friendship goes back to the early days when we were running around together in those crappy little bars and stuff you know when we were just getting started in town and uh I really uh I I just I called them up I sent them a copy of the song they loved it we got together in different times and they both put their vocals on it was just that that song to me was very validating in a lot of ways cuz I had been off the top of the charts for a long time and I'd recently been released from my record deal I'd been over at DreamWorks and DreamWorks merged with universal and that wasn't a good place at the time and I I got off the label so I started my own artist own record label with outsourced distribution and had a had a hired promotion staff and so it was just kind of all a cart stuff that we put together and to be able to take that that was my longest charted single I think I was on the on the charts for 52 weeks and and years before I mean to the top of the charts was 12 to 14 weeks so it was a long journey to get that record to the top of the charts and for a artist own label first single out of the box it was virtually unheard of for something like that to happen so it was very validating me not only as an artist but as a businessman and a person that had really studied this industry for a long long time that knew how the radio system worked and how marketing worked cuz it's always been a big part and thing that a lot of people don't understand about me is I am very engaged in what's going on around me it is music business for a reason but like I said I feel like it made a statement because like you said going through a lot of changes throughout the career and then to have two guys that you've known forever come on board with their career of course now these guys are running at the top of the charts at this point made a statement that through the ups and downs you have your buddies no matter what spoke volumes and I remember that being played on the radio and I think everybody was just cheering for it because it spoke for any of us we could related to our own lives right you got your people with and I felt that love from Radio too and I I have to say that and from everybody involved from the video world and everything there's so many people that rallied behind me but and and I I was really proud of that to feel the industry really be supportive cuz sometimes you can feel like you get kind of get pushed aside like going back to what we talked about earlier about the haggards and the guys and when radio turns on you and you move on it's not there's usually it's not anything personal it's just things happen cycal this is how goes and it's going to happen to every one of us even King George is you know you know he had a long run but at some point it's over for all of us and it's a it's a Jagged Little Pill to swallow at times when you get used to that that energy of that roller coaster of going through the charts and feeling hit videos and all those things that come with it you do get a little addicted to it man well not slowing down I know you got new music coming out this summer EP right right just uh finished an EP uh six new songs uh the title of the EP is out here in it and that will be uh the first single off the Record just shot a new video for it well as well so hopefully everybody get to see that real soon and I had to get some things together cuz we go out with Riley green and we'll be out on tour with him so you can find all those tour stops on Tracy lawrence.com and hopefully we'll see everybody out there on the road you still love it just as much don't you I do I still love the change of environment all the time it's never boring it's always moving forward and I like to be engaged in what's happening around me I feel like if I uh if I sit down too long and I get complacent I it's just not a healthy thing for me I have to and you know they say if you if you sit still too long you die so I got to keep my mind moving well not only that humanitarian of 2023 by country radio for all the work that you do uh for so many uh Charities here uh in Middle Tennessee dealing with the homeless Mission possible you've raised how many millions over the years I mean a lot of M we're about 3 million now served tens of thousands of plates of food over the years I mean we do a a turkey fry in the fall we cooked 1,400 turkeys this year served a lot of meals around not only to the Nashville Rescue Mission but all around the surrounding counties we have a whole group of people that that package meals up and send them out we'll drop 100 here and 100 here with different organizations and our golf tournament will be coming up in May so uh this will be our third annual and that's really the the cash M driver for all this that's really where we make a lot of money is at the at the golf tournament that's I said using your powers for good you're like a superhero my friend I love it a wonderful thing just a pleasure always getting to spend time with you thank you so much congratulations on everything going on in your world we're going to be looking for you on the road with Riley green and then I know you got dates coming up with Luke Bryan as well no slowing down Tracy Lawrence a pleasure thank you so much from the John Deere stage this has been on the record we'll see you next [Music] time you