Always trusting what his heart tells him

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: July 22, 2018

Always trusting what his heart tells him

County Fair headliner Scotty McCreery talks about his Wisconsin ties

By Nicholas Dettmann

ndettmann@conleynet.com 262-306-5043

WEST BEND — Traveling nearly 1,000 miles to audition for “American Idol” was a risk.

Putting out a song without a record label backing was a risk.

Doing those two things were out of the ordinary for country music star Scotty McCreery.

“I tend to kind of just stay on a line,” he said. “But going up to Milwaukee was definitely going out on a limb; putting a song out without a label was going out on a limb.”

What those two risks taught McCreery was to trust your gut, no matter what anyone tells you. Thankfully for him, it worked out.

“I think if I really trust in something, I’ll take a risk,” McCreery said. “But if you really trust in it and believe in it, it’s not too much of a risk.”

He added, “You’ve just got to trust your gut

sometimes, even when the powers that be say differently. Trust what your heart tells you and go after it.”

McCreery, who is the headliner Thursday night at the Washington County Fair in the town of Polk, reflected on what has already been a career with ups and downs at age 24.

In 2011, at the tender age of 17, McCreery won the hearts of America by winning the Fox reality television singing competition “American Idol,” outlasting Lauren Alaina, another aspiring country artist.

His “American Idol” audition was in Milwaukee. Thus, he admitted he has a soft spot for Wisconsin.

“It’s kind of where it all began for me,” McCreery said.

He auditioned in Milwaukee after his original plan to audition in Nashville, Tennessee, fell through because of a church camp he wanted to attend.

“We just kind of went (to Milwaukee) on a whim,” McCreery said.

However, he believed it may have worked to his advantage.

“Looking back on it now, I don’t think there were as many country singers in Milwaukee as there were in Nashville,” McCreery said.

In the two-plus years that followed, McCreery put out two albums — “Clear As Day” and “See You Tonight” — both of which topped at No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. Country chart. Sandwiched between those two albums in 2012 was a Christmas album, which reached No. 2.

Then things started to slow down for the Garner, North Carolina, native.

In 2015, the single “Southern Belle” peaked at No. 45. A year later, he was no longer with his record label — Mercury Nashville.

However, he had a song in his back pocket he was confident in and believed could swing his career back the other direction. The problem was getting the song distributed.

That song? “Five More Minutes.”

The song’s inspiration came from the passing of his grandfather, who died in 2015. The message was the wish to have five more minutes with a loved one, evidenced with the last verse of the song. He co-wrote it with Monty Criswell, with Frank Rogers as the producer.

“I knew it was special,” McCreery said. “You just never know how it’s going to work with radio.”

That is especially the case when he had no record label pushing it.

“It was a little bit of a gamble,” McCreery said. “But we felt strong about the song.”

McCreery admitted it was a song he needed and it needed to do well.

It did better than well, becoming the first song to chart on Mediabase’s Top 50 country chart without support from a record label.

Then, after 40 weeks on the chart, in late February, the song became his first No. 1 hit and has since been certified platinum — 1 million copies sold — by the Recording Industry Association of America.

“It was huge,” McCreery said. “It was something I’d been working toward for a long, long time. At one point, I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen or not.”

Had the song not worked out he knew his career as a performer was likely in jeopardy. But he tried to remain optimistic.

“It definitely helped that this song worked out,” McCreery said. “We would’ve still had a chance, but it would’ve been tough.”

He was optimistic because he already had an idea of how the song was doing with fans.

When it came to the song’s reception, he was moved by how many people connected to the song and how true it was for so many.

“It wasn’t something I was expecting,” he said.

There were about three or four rewrites of the song, specifically around the first verse. The reason was because he and Criswell wanted the story told a certain way. But he never doubted it’s potential.

“I always really believed in the song,” McCreery said.

When asked why he was so confident in the song, he said, “I’ve written a lot of songs, at least for me, I know which ones speak to me more than

others. I wrote the song when I was still on my previous label and even they loved it. They just wouldn’t put it out because they didn’t think it was radio friendly, but they still loved the song.”

The fans showed how they felt about it.

“We were playing it live and we were getting standing ovations every night we played it,” McCreery said. “That’s where the confidence came from.”

Since then, McCreery’s life has changed. He’s the proud owner of a No. 1 song, has a label — Triple Tigers — and is a newly wed. He married his longtime girlfriend Gabi Dugal on June 16 in North Carolina and they recently returned from their honeymoon to Bora Bora.

“It’s going good,” he said. “(We’re) getting the house together, moving in. The honeymoon was great in Bora Bora. The first month has been incredible.”