Jordan Davis Co-Hosts Backstage Country and Talks ‘Learn the Hard Way’

With an album title like Learn the Hard Way, you know Jordan Davis isn’t just dropping hits, he’s dropping knowledge and all the things he learned the hard way (pun obviously intended). This week, he will be Elaina Smith’s co-host on Backstage Country to talk about his latest album and its title track.  

Smith said that she understands why “Learn the Hard Way” is the album’s title track. Davis admitted that it’s “crazy that you call a song that you’re not a part of your title track,” but shared how it came to be: “I go out to my producer's studio, Paul DiGiovanni, and he's done everything I've ever put out. Obviously, I think [he] cares about my music just as much as I do. I walk in, and he was like, ‘Hey, man, I got this song I want to play for you. I think it kind of fits what we're doing.’ And he was, like, ‘Before you leave, remind me to play it for you.’ And immediately I'm like... ‘Paul put the song on.’ I'm not gonna be able to go write a song with him because he just doesn't pitch me a lot of songs.”  

Smith noted how he was already intrigued. Davis agreed, “I’m already kind of like, ‘Paul, press play. Play it.’ And he plays ‘Learn the Hard Way.’ That was the first time I kind of caught a theme of what we were doing on the record. And I was like, ‘Dude, this fits exactly what we've recorded.’”  

He added that by that time, they’d already recorded “Mess of Missing You,” “Memory Don’t Mess Around,” and “Jesus Wouldn’t Do.” He described the songs about “either learning from heartbreak or learning from past mistakes.   

Since Learn the Hard Way is his fourth album and he’s already used to writing and recording songs, Smith asked how different this album is from his past ones. Davis admitted it’s pretty wildly different: “The first one, you’ve got seven years to make. Being an artist, you have a long time to make your first record. You’re kinda like flipping a coin anyway, you know, maybe this works, maybe it doesn't. If it doesn't, nobody knew about it, and if it does, ‘Great, here we go!’ Luckily, our first one did great, had some big songs off of it. And then the second one is a shorter time distance to make.”   

He chuckled, “I had a ton of pressure in like, ‘All right, what am I gonna do?’ I did write what I felt like was a pretty personal record, and really kind of wanted to put the best songs that I've written. It was just like, ‘I'm gonna make a record of 18 of my favorite songs I've written.’”   

He continued, “Then the third one comes around and you're like, ‘All right, well, I can't do that again.’ I think my biggest fear as an artist is putting a record out and somebody being like, ‘It's not that good.’”  

Davis’s stint as co-host on Backstage Country proves one thing: he’s just as good at sharing the stories behind his songs as he is at singing them. Don’t forget to listen to his latest album, Learn the Hard Way, here.