Joe Nichols: A Seasoned Country Music Artist
With a country music career spanning more than 20 years, Joe Nichols has seen it all. As Kelly Ford’s co-host for an entire week on Backstage Country, Nichols will be sharing not only the lessons he’s learned as an artist but also the personal experiences that have made him who he is today.
Joe Nichols’s Comeback Songs
Ford asked Nichols about his string of comeback songs, to which he joked, “I think somebody tweeted this out at the time, so appropriately, I’ve had more comebacks than the McRib.” Nichols’s humor was evident as he reflected on the ups and downs of his career, especially the songs that kept bringing him back to the spotlight.
“Gimmie That Girl”
Nichols shared that he had two producers competing for the song “Gimmie That Girl”. Fortunately, one of them acknowledged the other producer’s sound was a better fit for the song after Nichols played it to him. “He looked at me and goes, ‘That’s a big hit right there.’” He added, “So I knew at the beginning of it, we had something catchy, something different. For me, this is more of a contemporary kind of sound.”
“Sunny and 75”
Ford told Nichols that when she heard “Sunny and 75,” she remembers saying, “Okay, Joe Nichols is back.” Nichols said that the song pushed him out of his comfort zone. “I was pushed in the production, in the pre-production stage, to try to stretch my voice out a little bit, maybe try to sing uncomfortably,” he said, adding that he was reassured if he didn’t like the outcome, no one ever has to hear it.
Nichols, however, was determined. He said, “But you don’t know what you’re capable of until you try. And we went in and fought with that song. I fought with that song for weeks. I mean, weeks in a studio, grueling, just kind of trying to get out of my comfort zone. And we eventually did find a sweet spot where I could breathe, I could sing.”
Life Lessons from a Country Music Artist
Ford and Nichols also talked about when he parted ways with his label. He admitted, “When you do that in Nashville as an artist, certainly not as a young one, you get a lot of soul searching to do. You kind of question everything like, ‘Am I going to have any more success?’ ‘Is this where I ride off into the sunset?’”
Nichols made it clear thought that he was grateful for his successes. Still, he knew he had a lot more to offer and there’s a desire to create more.
During this time, a song came along, and he felt he needed to do things his way. “I need to go spend my own money with somebody I trust in the studio and go pitch that to a label because I think somebody will buy that right there. And that’s what I did.”
The risk paid off. Nichols shared, “We walked into a couple of labels in town, including Red Bow, Broken Bow, and their jaws dropped. They’re like, ‘That’s a freaking hit.’ We can put that out tomorrow. That’ll race to number one. Let’s do a deal today.”
He added, “There’s nothing like coming out of the studio and knowing you got something magic. There’s no feeling like that in this business because everything else is kind of results and numbers and data or money or something like that. But when you have magic out of the studio and you feel it, that touches something in your soul that money can’t touch.”
Tune in from October 21-25, 2024, as Joe Nichols gives Kelly Ford and all listeners a glimpse of his life as a seasoned country music artist.