| SCOTTY MCCREERY Bio:
Clear As Day is the perfect title for Scotty McCreery’s debut
country album because this impressive collection of songs clearly and
vividly captures who Scotty is as an artist and a young man.
America fell in love with Scotty in 2011 when he appeared on
American Idol and immediately made a name for himself with his deep
and undeniably country voice, strong sense of self, small-town roots,
and unwavering integrity and conviction. In May, he won Season Ten of
American Idol when a record-breaking 122.4 million votes were cast
for the finale and nearly 39 million people tuned in to see the winner’s
name announced.
The album’s debut single, “I Love You This Big,” became a Top 15 hit
and enjoyed the highest-charting debut for a new artist since at least
1984, while the video for the song hit No. 1 in just a week after its
release. He recorded his debut album while starring in the American
Idols Live! Tour, which Pollstar ranked as one of the nation’s
Top 15 tours.
Scotty is pleased that he was able to accomplish the goals he had set
for his debut album. “I wanted to make sure people could hear me through
the songs they were listening to,” he says. “On American Idol, I always
told them, ‘What you see is what you get. Scotty on the show is Scotty
off the show. I’m the same guy onstage and offstage.’
“On this album, I wanted them to make sure they really got who I am,
how I grew up in Garner, N.C., and what I am all about,” he says. “It
was also really important to me to keep some of the traditional elements
of country music in it, to remember where country came from, and I think
we did that. I hope that the people who listen to this record will see
that and appreciate it and really see exactly who I am.”
And who he is, says the album’s producer, Mark Bright, is an amazing
singer with tremendous vocal control and depth. “His voice is shockingly
great,” he says. “Everybody knows Scotty has a deep voice, but what a
lot of people don’t know is that he has a pretty high range. His
listeners will get to hear the nuances, emotions and actual range of his
voice.”
While recording the album, Scotty was driven by the desire to blend
the best of both musical worlds – classic and contemporary – to create a
fresh sound that is simultaneously new and timeless. “It’s got some true
country songs that have a contemporary feel, like ‘The Trouble With
Girls,’” he says. “But there are some songs, like ‘Clear As Day’ or
‘That Old King James,’ that have that old country feel to it, that
country that I grew up idolizing and listening to, like Hank Williams
and Conway Twitty and Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. I think this album
has a good mix.”
Clear As Day explores the big philosophies and small details
that define life in America, especially the small towns that can
sometimes feel confining to teens with a powerful wanderlust for places
unseen. With songs such as “Out of Summertime,” “Write My Number On Your
Hand” and “You Make That Look Good,” the album depicts the intoxicating
excitement of the coming-of-age years, such as the anticipation of
Friday nights, the intrigue of meeting a pretty girl and the thrill of
exchanging class rings.
The album is a collection of appealing songs with universal themes,
whether they’re exploring topics such as girls, family dinners or the
Bible. “I chose these songs because they mean a lot to me, but I think
everybody can also relate to them,” Scotty says.
For instance, “Water Tower Town” talks about working hard and living
right in a place where word travels fast and wheels turn slow. The
chorus says, “Friday night football is king/ Sweet tea goes good with
anything/ Nobody eats ‘til you say amen/ And everybody knows your mom
and them/ You can see who loves who for miles around/ In a water tower
town.” Says Scotty, “It reminds me so much of my hometown, where growing
up meant Friday night football games,” he says. “Everything in that song
screams my hometown of Garner.”
The vivid title track is a cautionary tale about the dangers of
teenage driving.
“The town next to Garner, N.C., had a lot of teenage driving deaths
in the last few years, and ‘Clear As Day’ talks about that in a powerful
way,” he says. “It has a great message and a great feel, and I could
really relate to it. It tells the story of a guy waiting on his girl
after a Friday night football game and they go to a party and it’s
raining. After the party, he walks her to his brother’s Silverado and
she says she’ll call him the next day, but it’s a call she never got to
make.”
The album’s second single, “The Trouble With Girls,” describes the
knee-buckling power women have over men as, “they bat those eyes/they
steal you with hello/ they kill you with goodbye.” “It’s a really sweet
song that talks about all of the great things about girls, like how
pretty they are and how they have wonderful smiles,” he says. “It talks
about things girls like to hear.”
Scotty decided to record “Dirty Dishes’ in part because it passed
what he calls “the Mama crying test.” “She was crying when she heard
it,” he says of his mother. “It talks about a mom and a family sitting
down at a table eating dinner. The mother sits down for prayer and
starts saying thanks for noisy children and slamming doors, because
slamming doors means they live in a good home and noisy kids mean happy
kids. The mother has a cool way of looking at things.”
Scotty developed his unique way of looking at things while growing up
with older sister Ashley in a musical household in Garner, N.C. By age
3, he was singing “The Muffin Man” to anyone who would listen, and a few
years later he was repeating the words of those around him in a song.
His father, a senior manufacturing systems analyst, and his mother, a
real estate agent and teacher, sang in the church choir, as did their
children.
His grandmother gave Scotty a book on Elvis Presley when he was in
pre-school, so Scotty began walking and talking like The King. His
mother listened to artists such as Conway Twitty while driving, and
Scotty quickly fell in love with those sounds. He still vividly
remembers his first country concert, a show featuring George Strait,
Reba McEntire and Lee Ann Womack.
He began guitar lessons at age 10 and was so hooked that he started
sleeping with the instrument. “I would wake up and have my guitar and my
friends would be sleeping,” he says. “They would give me a look and I’d
be like, ‘All right,’ and put the guitar down so they could go back to
sleep. But they were really accepting of it. They would say, ‘Learn this
song,’ and I would play it for them. When we became teenagers, we would
drive around listening to ‘Your Cheating Heart’ and ‘Okie From
Muskogee.’”
Scotty sang in his school choirs since elementary school, including
the high school group that travels nationally and consistently wins
competitions. His voice dropped dramatically when he was about 13. “I
didn’t notice a difference, but my mom said it fell off a cliff,” he
says. “There was no real cracking.”
He performed locally at Christmas events and at Bullfeathers
Restaurant. His rendition of label mate Jamey Johnson’s hit “In Color”
helped him win Clayton Idol and gave him the confidence to perform more
frequently in public.
His parents, as well as his chorus teacher, believe something else
gave Scotty the confidence to perform in public – pitching baseball.
Following in the footsteps of his father, who was also a baseball
pitcher, Scotty learned to pitch at an early age. “When you are a
pitcher, all eyes are on you,” says his mother, Judy. “You have to be
focused and able to handle pressure.” It turns out that Scotty is as
pitch-perfect on the mound as he is onstage: in his last varsity high
school game, he pitched a complete shut-out and struck out nine batters.
He continued that winning streak on the stage of American Idol,
where he became the youngest male winner and the only country male
winner in the show’s history. He’s now eager to take the next step of
his country music career with the release of his debut album, which
comes the same week as his 18th birthday. But it turns out that he’s
already received the best birthday present possible: the support of
people across the nation who’ve made it clear as day that they love both
the music and the young man.
“I am so grateful to all of the fans out there because we’ve been on
this journey together,” he says. “They are the reason I am where I am;
they voted me through. Hopefully with this album we can continue this
journey and see where it takes us.
“Performing on tour has really taught me a lot,” he says. “We have
different crowds and different responses that always keep it fresh. It’s
showing me that this is what I want to do forever. I thrive on this and
I’m really enjoying it. Hopefully I can do this for the rest of my
life.”
website:
www.ScottyMcCreery-Official.com |
