‘Backup Plan’ Producer Austin Shawn On Creating the Hit: ‘From the Beginning, It Felt Like An Overcoming Adversity Song’

It has been (another) good year so far for Bailey Zimmerman. The country artist reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 this spring with his feature on BigXthaPlug’s “All the Way” from the latter’s forthcoming country collaboration project. Then, Zimmerman followed that with “Backup Plan,” his inspirational new single featuring Luke Combs, which became his ninth career Hot 100 entry and has reached a No. 36 high in its six weeks on the chart.

Zimmerman and Combs debuted the stomping “Backup Plan” during Combs’ headlining set at Stagecoach in April — though the song’s roots were planted well prior to that performance. According to the track’s producer, Austin Shawn, it was initially created because people compiling the soundtrack to 2024 film Twisters asked Zimmerman to send along songs for consideration. “We sent that one, but ‘Hell or High Water’ landed better for the movie,” Shawn, 27, tells Billboard.

“Backup Plan” is just the latest extension in the winning partnership between Zimmerman and Shawn, which started with the former’s first EP, Leave the Light On, and includes the hit songs “Rock and a Hard Place” and “Fall In Love.”

Below, Shawn talks about creating “Backup Plan,” his working relationship with Zimmerman and what listeners can expect on his second album.

What did you think the first time you heard “Backup Plan”?

We heard it around early 2023, and I immediately loved the song because it reminded me of “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac. It had a bit of red dirt, a bit of country, a lot of the hookiness of modern country, which is exactly what me and Bailey tend to lean [to] when we make songs. The original demo was just an acoustic guitar and a vocal that Tucker Beathard [co-writer, along with Jimi Bell and Jon Sherwood] did.

Were you involved in the decision to add Luke Combs to the song?

It worked out really well because when Bailey did the vocals, we were thinking, “Who could feature?” When I finished the first rough mix on it, Bailey was like, “Should I text it to Luke?” Luke didn’t get back to him for a month — he was probably just living with it. And then he was like, “Song rips, I’m in,” out of nowhere. We had not gone to anyone else. It was either Luke or nothing.

Were you together in the studio for Combs adding his part?

Luke is, first of all, one of the best dudes in the world. I sent the session over to [his producer] Chip Matthews and then me and Bailey went over to Chip’s house and Luke cut the vocal. We spent about two hours talking and rambling on and laughing and telling jokes — and about 10 minutes doing the vocal. It was mostly just a big hangout session; barely any work was being done. Luke is so good, he can do three passes of the song, and it sounds like it’s a finished thing.

Thematically, it’s like Combs’ song “Doin’ This,” in that if being an artist is your path no matter what, you cannot have a backup plan. Is the end result similar to what the demo sounded like? 

The original demo was just an acoustic guitar in a voice memo that Tucker Beathard did. Tucker is one of our good buddies, too, and we write a lot of songs with him, so he usually just plays his guitar and his vocal and sings it into his phone.

From the very beginning, the song felt like an overcoming adversity type of song, so we wanted it to be big. We wanted it to be like an anthem. We wanted it to be something that is charged up. We had to paint the picture from there and carry it into that big, beat-your-chest type of energetic song.

So that stomp feel wasn’t there, but you heard the possibility of that.

It was completely different. It was like someone sitting here in your living room just playing it for you or around the campfire. It was good, though, because the sentiment was there and it gave us all the runway to paint the picture the way we wanted to.

You’ve been collaborating with Zimmerman since the beginning. How has your working relationship evolved?

When you work on so much music together over the years, you learn how to communicate and decipher each other’s emotions, feelings, words — I know when Bailey loves a song, doesn’t love a song. He’ll know when I think a decision that he wants to make is good or when I don’t. That helps us get round the bend on songwriting, production, direction. We’re like brothers. He’s gone through a lot in his personal life; I’ve gone through a lot in my personal life. We’ve been there for each other outside music, too.

This is the second song we’ve heard from Zimmerman’s second album, Different Night, Same Rodeo, which is due out Aug. 8. Anything else you can tell us about the album?

Absolutely. A lot of the stuff is familiar, and then there’s a good batch of songs that go outside of the box where we’ve really pushed the boundaries. There’s a couple of awesome features on the record. There’s familiarity, there’s evolution and there’s a little bit of something for all demographics of music too, not just country.

A version of this story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.