“I started working with producers I really love that made electronic music,” he says. So, as promotion begins for new singles, he has time outside of that to work on other projects. For Brown, an album cycle can last upwards of two or three years. And it’s his comfort with styles even outside of country music-the genre he’s come to be known for-that led him to start his side project, Sir Roosevelt, which incorporates electronic production and beat making. He appreciates his southern roots, the region’s famed hospitality, and the introduction Atlanta in particular gave him when it comes to a diversity of sounds. It was there where he picked up a well-rounded sense of music appreciation, diving into the rap music of Outkast and others in that seminal group’s orbit. “Seeing what about them made you feel something.”Ī southerner, Brown calls Atlanta, Georgia his hometown.
“I loved the craft of a song,” Brown says. He listened to bands like the Eagles and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. He went to college for a classical vocal performance scholarship. He was in choir from first grade through high school. Throughout school, Brown played and studied. So much so that his friends would poke fun at him, calling it “rocking chair music.” But he didn’t care. He remembers enjoying bands like Nirvana but it was Taylor that really spoke to him. Brown remembers dissecting his songs, following the strumming patterns and the acoustic bass lines that Taylor would incorporate with his singing. James Taylor was another big inspiration. So, it was always a good vehicle for me to process things and get that emotion out.” The first time you fall in love, you think you’re going to die when you break up. “That was the catalyst for starting to write sad songs,” he says. Later in life, when he experienced his first real heartbreak, songwriting arrived in his world. He began carrying a boombox wherever he went, and a guitar too. Brown began to take classical guitar lessons around seven years old. It was there where he saw other kids his age who were “incredible players” finger-picking and playing guitars, banjos, and mandolins. His older brother would take him to music festivals like MerleFest and other concerts when Brown was around 10 years old. In addition, Brown’s father and his friends would often sit around campfires or back porches strumming guitars and banjos. It was then Brown began to pick up on little melodies, jingles, and songs from the television shows and commercials he’d watch. But Brown’s work ethic wasn’t born as an adult, it arrived earlier, even around two- or three years old.
ZACC BROWN HOW TO
And more than that, he learned how to treat people-from the bar’s custodian to the customers-and how to appreciate every fan. He’d learned how to pack dozens then hundreds and then thousands of people in a venue and how to keep them happy with songs. By the time Brown and his band were making records and releasing songs in a mainstream way, he knew what he needed to do. We were trying to win people over one person at a time, one room at a time.” “We learned how to read a crowd, how to pick covers that they would know. With this model, Brown played somewhere between 250 and 300 shows a year for a decade. But then they’d play for those hours on end at no relative cost to the venue. He remembers going into the sports bars and presenting them with an idea-to give him and his drummer a bar tab and to let them take money at the door. But not a lot of people have the hustle and the grind.”īrown remembers playing for six hours a night for six or seven nights a week for years on end. One thing I’ve learned being around this business and trying to help other artists: talent comes pretty cheap. “Well, 2008 was when our first song went out to radio,” says Brown of his hit single, “Chicken Fried.” “But for 10 years before that-I had toured for six years with just me and a drummer, playing all over the Southeast. But it’s not for any lack of keeping in mind those initial good ol’ days. Now, though, Brown and his band have grown, earned accolades, and are continuing their path upward. He remembers borrowing money from one of his 11 siblings for a PA system and microphones. Remembers camping on porches, and staying in friends’ garages. He remembers inventing a business model early on: playing sports bars midweek and eventually bringing in hundreds of people. Remembers the decade it took for the industry to really pay attention. Thankfully, for the fans of the popular Zac Brown Band, this isn’t the case for the group and its frontman. But sometimes the roots can be lost for the sake of the fruit. 1 records, Grammy Awards, and a string of sold-out tour dates in stadiums (including a spot opening up for The Rolling Stones)-it’s easy to forget where they’ve come from. When a band gets big-when the group earns No.
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