This Week’s Backstage Country Host: Scotty McCreery

This week on Backstage Country, Elaina Smith is joined by none other than American Idol Season 10 winner, Scotty McCreery! He’s got a brand-new song featuring Hootie & the Blowfish, and he’s hanging out all week to play some great country tunes and chat about his upcoming fall tour with Dustin Lynch. 

Smith asked McCreery about his song “Damn Strait,” a tribute song for George Strait, the King of Country Music. McCreery joked, “Yeah, me and George are best friends. We go out to dinner every Tuesday.” He chuckled, “I'm just kidding. I wish. He has been very supportive of the song, and he was always super kind and gracious to me even beforehand. Anytime I get the chance to see George, we go back even to when I was still on American Idol. It was the finale week, and I got to pick a song to sing.” 

He continued reminiscing about his days at the singing competition: “Jennifer Lopez got to take a song for me, and my idol got to take a song for me, and that was George. He called me from his boat. He was out fishing, and he called me and picked a song for me. So, he's always just been the coolest.” 

He added, “He tweeted me how much he loved it. And I just pictured George on his horse in Texas on his phone, tweeting away. I'm sure that's exactly how it happened.” 

Smith brought up one of McCreery’s fan favorites, “This Is It,” noting that the music video has already racked up an impressive 84 million views on YouTube. She playfully asked Scotty how many of those views he thinks came from him, or maybe his family hitting replay a few (dozen) times. The American Idol alum joked, “Oh, probably at least 83 million of them.” He laughed, “We have watched that a ton. You know, that was an interesting conversation having with Gabi beforehand. I was like, ‘You mind if we shoot a music video while we're filming our wedding?’ And you know she was in, kind of right when we started dating, she was the music video for ‘The Trouble with Girls,’ my second single I ever had out there.”  

He added, “Back then, it was still just these huge productions and trucks and huge cameras and dollies and directors and staff. She was like, ‘Are you kidding me? We are not doing any video for this. And we're not making a production out of the wedding.’ We worked it out to where it would just be two people, just two cameras, and they'd just be in the background filming. And it really turned out so cool. I'm so glad we shot that video as the wedding, instead of trying to stage something.” 

Be sure to tune in to Backstage Country all week long. With Scotty and Elaina behind the mic, you’re guaranteed great stories, great music, and all the good vibes.