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On Kelsea Ballerini‘s most recent album, Patterns, she explored and considered various behavior patterns in her life, with the music on the project detailing her journey in adjusting or breaking those patterns when needed.
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In an interview with People, Ballerini spoke up about another pattern in her life that needed breaking- -namely, her relationship with social media. In a recent concert, she was open in telling fans that she would still regularly read comments that were posted about her online, but she’s had to make changes in how she approaches certain online platforms.
“I got rid of Twitter a long time ago. That was helpful. Twitter kicked my ass,” Ballerini told the outlet. “I discovered Reddit. I went through a very toxic phase with that, but it was when my life was a bit chaotic. Then I was like, ‘We need to have some boundaries.’ So that’s no longer.”
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These days, she says she primarily gravitates toward Instagram and TikTok. “Even that feels like too much, but I’m not sure how to not because I’m a people pleaser, and I like the feedback,” she noted. “I think my intention is because I like feedback and I like to edit set lists, or we’re tweaking things on the tour because I’m seeing stuff on TikTok. But yeah, I’m a girl. I’m sensitive. I’m an artist. If I see a mean comment, it affects me.”
Ballerini has been transparent about the benefits of therapy, and has said working with a therapist helped her work toward overcoming her tendency to be a people-pleaser. “My therapist told me a while ago, ‘Kelsea, you need to care more about less,’” Ballerini said, adding that she’s less emotionally impacted by mean-spirited online comments than she used to be. “Although I still care about that feedback, I don’t give it the gravity that I used to.”
She says doing the hard work to sustain emotional and mental health also involves accepting both the positive and not-so-positive aspects of oneself.
“I’m very aware of my flaws. I have a relationship with them, and I do the work to keep growing up and growing out of certain things,” she said. “But in the same breath, I fully accept and celebrate myself right now. I don’t think I’ve ever been truly able to before because I had to go through life. You have to learn yourself before you love yourself — and I had learning to do.”
That personal growth has also led to career growth, with Patterns becoming her first No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart last year, while her Kelsea Ballerini Live on Tour 2025 tour has been selling out arenas across the country. She also just notched her first ACM entertainer of the year nomination ahead of the upcoming Academy of Country Music Awards on May 8.
LOCASH leads Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated April 12) for the first time since 2016 as “Hometown Home” ascends a spot to No. 1. The song increased by 10% to 30.1 million audience impressions March 28-April 3, according to Luminate. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The […]
“Cowgirls” hitmaker and four-time ACM Award nominee Ernest is adding another notch to his musical resume, launching his own label, DeVille Records, in a joint venture with Big Loud Records (where Ernest himself signed as an artist in 2019).
Ernest’s DeVille Records features Chandler Walters, Rhys Rutherford and Cody Lohden as its first artists. Ernest, Walters, Rutherford and Lohden are all managed by new recently-announced management company Greenhouse Management, launched by Kiley Donohoe.
The initial project from the new label is Cadillac Sessions, a mixtape-style compilation set for release on May 9, that will feature two new original songs, and one cover from Ernest, Walters, Rutherford and Lohden, plus guest artists. The project will blend honky-tonk, ’90s country, Western swing and more.
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“We’re going to build this thing wide and on concrete,” Ernest said in a statement of DeVille Records. “Artist development. Write the songs and do it the old-school way. Make the videos, see the vision, help the vision come to life.”
“We have been in business with ERNEST for almost a decade. What started with ERN as a young prolific songwriter-artist in Big Loud’s publishing hallways, has evolved into so much more over the years,” Big Loud CEO / partner Seth England added. “Our partnerships in ERN’s Cadillac Music have gone so well, and his desire to create DeVille Records alongside of it made sense. ERNEST himself grew in an independent and cultural environment much like the one he desires to create. He and I have talked about this day for years, and all of the unique ways we could help break the next wave of prolific artists. Kudos to Rhys, Cody and Chandler for buying into this vision and supporting this unique rollout style with our upcoming DeVille project.”
With the new label, Ernest continues doubling down on giving back to his hometown of Nashville. Last year, he released a musical love letter to his hometown with the album Nashville, Tennessee, has earned multiple ACM, CMA and Grammy nominations, including his current ACM nominations for artist-songwriter of the year, as well as being a co-writer on the ACM song of the year-nominated song “I Had Some Help,” recorded by Morgan Wallen and Post Malone.
Writer, artist and steel guitar player Walters is touring with Post Malone and Ernest, and co-wrote the Post Malone/Morgan Wallen hit “I Had some Help.” Kentucky native Lohden, a former firefighter/paramedic, draws on the sounds of ’80s country singers such as Keith Whitley and Don Williams, and has toured with Ernest, Bailey Zimmerman and Walker Hayes. Rutherford has contributed to songs by (“Is This Really Over?”), Ernest feat. Morgan Wallen (“Hangin’ On”), Kashus Culpepper (“Talk With Me”) and George Pippen (“Rest of Our Life”).
Over two decades ago, Texas native Jessica Simpson was known for her pristine, sleek pop image — as the vocal purveyor of massive pop hits like “I Wanna Love You Forever,” “I Think I’m in Love With You” and “With You,” but also for her work as a fashion industry titan and a reality television star.
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But her new music video, “Blame Me,” off her March 21-released, five-song EP Nashville Canyon: Pt. 1, showcases Simpson in a laid-back, creative mode, working with a cavalcade of writers and musicians to bring the song to life. She wrote “Blame Me” with Lucie Silvas, Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne, Teresa LaBarbera, and writer-producer JD McPherson (who recently toured with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant).
“Being in the studio, what you see with ‘Blame Me’ is really the process of me becoming the artist I’ve always wanted to be,” Simpson tells Billboard.
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Nashville Canyon: Part 1 marks Simpson’s first new music in 15 years — and a project where she explores the nuances of healing after heartbreak, fusing her own written lyrics with elements of rockabilly and Americana. Following a split from husband Eric Johnson, she decamped to Nashville in late 2023, and found solace and strength through songwriting — chasing emotional connection rather than simply widespread audience consumption.
“We gave them a playlist of songs with artists like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sierra Ferrell, Fred McDowell, and we just said, ‘Anything you want off the playlist, let’s go with that vibe.’ Don’t say the word ‘single,’ don’t say the word ‘hit,’ we’re traumatized by the word ‘smash,’” Simpson said.
Many of the songs filling the EP are drawn from a notebook of what Simpson calls “Jessica’s Golden Nuggets”: an assortment of quotes, ideas and musings Simpson has jotted down throughout her days, which served as inspirations for the songs on the new project. “I’ve always journaled. If I don’t journal for a few months, I know there’s something I’m not wanting to confront, emotionally. So, I went to Nashville and was like, ‘Let the confrontation begin,’” Simpson says.
In “Blame Me,” knowing her own story and her own worth, she dares an ex-lover to go ahead with trash talking her to those around them and laying the responsibility for the fizzled relationship at her feet.
“I think it’s such a powerful song. I think it’s a strong heartbreak anthem that we’re all strong enough to go through whatever hand gets dealt and we can find power in the pain of things,” she says.
Simpson says more music is on the way, with part two of the project in the works. “We’re finishing that up in the next couple of weeks, which is exciting,” she says.
Simpson spoke with Billboard about the video for “Blame Me,” creating her new project in Music City and rediscovering herself as an artist.
The video for “Blame Me” features you and the musicians, your fellow creators, all in the studio together. Why was that so important for you to showcase?
When I walked into the studio with all the musicians, at first I thought I was going to throw up in my mouth. I was so nervous, but then it was just so welcoming and everybody just looked to me for direction, which I’m not used to as an artist. You would think I’d be used to that, but I’m so used to somebody else directing me.
To have other musicians that do this every day of their lives for all kinds of artists looking at me and wanting to really understand where I was at lyrically and understanding me as an artist, this just feels so authentically me. And it was important to show the process in such a vulnerable song. We have to feel to heal. It was the last song we wrote for EP One. We didn’t have a ballad and I really wanted to have one.
You wrote “Blame Me” with a few co-writers, including Lucie Silvas and Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne. What was that like?
We also did “Leave” on the EP with John and Lucie. They are incredible, and John — what a guitar player. He’s so incredible, I was just blown away.
You named the EP Nashville Canyon. Why was Nashville the right place for you to record this project?
I love Nashville so much because lyrically, it’s such a place where you can say anything and you can open up about anything without judgment, and you are just automatically connected to the other songwriters. It’s truly like therapy sitting in front of a therapist, yet nobody’s a therapist. It depends on what kind you go to. They can ask you questions that make you discover. And I feel like the way that writers do that, they talk you through things as well. They offer advice. A lot of people have gone through the same things and they’re so used to being so open.
You released Nashville Canyon independently. How has that been different?
I’m not with the record label. I don’t have money behind me. Everything you’re seeing is just my own change that I have. I’m not paying for radio. I do feel like a new artist all over again. But this time I have the reins. Early on [in her career], I never met the musicians behind any of my music, and I never even knew the songwriters. So, until I started writing with people… the first song that I got to write was actually my first huge song [2003’s “With You”]. I realized early on that people respond to who I am as a person, my work — they know when it’s real. They know when it’s authentic. I think I’ve taken such a long break that people are now discovering me all over again.
One of the last albums you released was the country album Do You Know. Last month, you played your first live show in 15 years, at SXSW, and Nashville Canyon: Pt. 1 went to No. 1 on iTunes’ country albums chart. How has that felt?
It was shocking that it went to number one on country. I was like, “Wait, I had a number one country album [in 2008 with Do You Know] and I was dropped that week, and I never understood it.” I just thought people didn’t want me singing country. [With Nashville Canyon: Pt. 1] I wanted it to be genreless. When you’re not focused on radio and you’re not focused on that type of thing, the music really can land wherever the people put it.
I was dropped [from her former label] in 2007, 2008. I had a record deal since I was 14 years old. It’s losing a part of yourself that you thought made you who you were. I didn’t really have a deep understanding of it until a bit later. But they also didn’t know that I was such a different artist than they were trying to push and I never got that freedom of discovery. I did another project, a Christmas project [2010’s Happy Christmas], but that was the last thing I’d ever done. My kids [Maxwell (12), Ace (11), and Birdie (5)] have never seen me perform still. I did the Rockefeller Tree lighting and the Macy’s Day Parade, but they have never seen me perform, so when they do, it’ll be such a beautiful moment for me.
What do you hope people take away from this record?
I wanted to give people a piece of me, and that is what art is: they watch it and they apply it to their own lives, and they know that I’m just like they are. Just like reality TV was important for people to take me off of a pedestal and not just be an unapproachable, pretty singer. It was important to show my personality so people knew that there’s some things in life I take seriously and there’s some things that I don’t. I definitely say everything that comes into my mind out loud. I have no filter and I don’t have a filter when it comes to music.
What is ahead for EP two?
We just recorded at a different place called The Bomb Shelter, which had different acoustics and vibes for EP two, but the sounds will be cohesive. We have steel guitar on there, but not steel guitar in how you would think country… it’s more like how Tom Petty or Neil Young would use a steel guitar player.
An annual tradition on American Idol continues on Monday (April 7) – Hollywood Week, an integral part of the process of finding a winner, which has been part of the series since season 1 in 2002. But this year’s Hollywood Week is different from any previous edition, with the addition of Idol’s first artist-in-residence, Jelly Roll.
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“Hollywood Week is even more chaotic than what you see on TV. The episodes are pretty chaotic, but the camera can’t catch all of the chaos,” Jelly Roll tells Billboard during a sit-down interview. “I love it because it reminds me of the music business. It’s real. They’re not hazing these kids. This is stuff that happens in our business all the time. I can’t wait for the world to see this – the show brings me in when the kids are picking their head-to-head songs, so I am in the trenches with these babies. I watch them pick their songs. I give them advice and I catch them picking their partners. Some of them probably picked the wrong partner,” he shares.
“There was one group of singers who didn’t know how to communicate with each other, and I said, ‘This is the biggest decision you’re going to make because this is the last time the judges decide who goes forward. I’m going to give y’all my advice right now. Take it or leave it and I won’t be offended, but I think at this point your best bet is to pick a song that you feel safe doing together, not where one has to carry the other.’
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“Another group picked a song that the girl knew really well, and the guy didn’t know, and they thought it was the best for them. I said, ‘At this point, if y’all aren’t going to change the song, then there’s going to be a point where you’re going to have to carry this song,’ and that’s exactly how it shook out. She ended up having to carry the song and then, as happens in American Idol, there’s a plot twist, but I can’t give that away.”
Season 23 is not the first time the producers have shaken up the Hollywood Week format. “We refresh it here and there, year-to-year,” executive producer and showrunner Megan Michaels Wolflick explains over breakfast with Billboard. “The auditions are the auditions. The live shows are the live shows. Hollywood Week is the round that has the most flexibility, but I do think that it’s really important to keep the integrity of the challenges the same as far as actually giving them real experiences that they might have in the industry, like staying up all night, collaborating with someone you’ve never met before, learning a new song. Some years you have duets or groups. With Carrie Underwood coming back, it was important for me to maintain some of the things that she had experienced in her season.”
And what did Underwood think of that? “Hollywood Week for her was the biggest eye-opening experience,” says Wolflick. “She remembers so much about all of it and her group round with Vonzell Solomon singing ‘Please Mr. Postman’ and all the little things, like forgetting her words in the first round. She sang ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ by Candi Staton. She didn’t really know that song. It was a different era then with no original music and you couldn’t play guitar. So she’s definitely seen the evolution. It was nostalgic, yet she was still excited about it.”
Wolflick elaborated on adding Jelly Roll to the mix, following his appearance on the season 21 finale and his mentorship during the Hawaii shows in season 22. “He was so great last year. He sat with the panel and he brought so much charisma and excitement. When the show aired the feedback was very positive and we and ABC were eager to do something with him. I’m sure every other show, like The Voice, were asking him too. He’s very hot. He loves American Idol. He told me, ‘This is one of the biggest things to ever happen to my career.’ He literally watched every single tape. He watched every single bio. He took the kids off to the side before going on camera and made them feel comfortable. I’ve never experienced mentoring on this level. I think carving out his role on the live shows is going to be interesting, too.”
In a separate interview, Jelly Roll confirmed his feelings about the show. “I love Idol. I’ve been an Idol fan my whole life. Who doesn’t love watching a kid’s dream come true on national TV? That’s what we get to see. To come back this year and have a full-time position with the cast is really great.”
Expanding on his role on Idol this season, Jelly Roll’s enthusiasm was apparent. “It’s fun. I’m glad we’re talking about this, because I look at my role probably different than anybody else does. I think I am the bridge from these young artists to the people’s living room. I am a bridge between them and the judges. I’m a constant mentor and source of advice, but more than anything, my job is to try to make these kids feel as good as I know they sound.”
Wolflick explained why this new role was created for Jelly Roll. “The word mentor seemed a little cliché and I wanted something with some weight. An artist-in-residence matches the gravitas that he has. He’s there with us all season. Hopefully he’s here for the long haul. He’s invested above and beyond what we would really expect of him.”
Albums with upward of 20 to 30 songs may be de rigueur for many artists in today’s music landscape — but when it came to crafting their new Stoney Creek Records/BMG album Fell in Love With a Cowgirl, out Friday (April 4), country group Parmalee had other ideas.
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“We wanted to give everybody a break,” Parmalee lead singer Matt Thomas tells Billboard of the album’s succinct seven tracks. “We wanted different stuff — not putting three versions of the same song on an album just to fill up the album.”
“And we just wanted to pick the best of what we had and do songs we love, and love to play live,” adds Parmalee drummer (and Matt’s brother) Scott Thomas.
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The North Carolina-born brothers, alongside their Parmalee bandmates, their cousin Barry Knox (on bass) and Josh McSwain (on guitar/keys), are also tasked with extending their hot streak of recent chart hits. In the past four years, the group has earned three No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits — “Just the Way,” “Take My Name” and most recently, 2024’s “Gonna Love You” — as well as the No. 3 hit “Girl in Mine.”
This year, they balance out the serious-minded ballad “Gonna Love You” by veering into up-tempo territory with the new album’s first release, “Cowgirl,” the summer-ready, danceable song that certainly picks up on the “cowgirl” vibe that has swept culture over the past year.
They launched their headlining Fell in Love With a Cowgirl Tour in February, and “Cowgirl” is already making its impact known. “Man, to see [the audience] already know the song is pretty exciting,” says Matt.
A range of sounds from rock-oriented songs such as “Miss Me When You’re Drinkin’” to pop-tilted love songs like “Day One,” “God Knew Better” and “Feels Like Home” scaffold the album around the group’s sinewy harmonies. Matt Thomas is a co-writer on every song, with other Parmalee bandmates contributing writing to various songs.
“We know our lane and what our fans expect from us,” Matt says. “The easiest thing to write about is love, and I think that’s kind of a thing that works for us. So, it always ends up coming back to that. We like to make people feel good.”
Listening to Parmalee’s carefully sculpted harmonies surrounding Matt’s high-flung lead vocals easily conveys the influence of vocal-forward groups from the rock, R&B and Americana worlds.
“Growing up in North Carolina, you go in any gas station, and you hear Motown and beach music and soul. Classic rock, and the Temptations,” McSwain says. “We still play Boyz II Men on the bus sometimes, all the ‘90s R&B stuff. And you had the bluegrass with the high harmonies.”
“I grew up thinking the harmony was the lead,” Knox recalls. “My mom would never sing along [to the melody] with the radio — she would harmonize to everything, so I grew up just thinking that’s how you sang.”
“When I’m singing at my best, it’s at a high register so these guys can come in at the middle register,” Matt says. “We’ve always done the three-part harmony thing where it needs to be. That’s the learning curve, too, of going from the studio to the stage. You can make anything sound good in the studio. You get up there and start playing it live, you only nail that thing one time and you got to do it every night. That’s something I think about, too, when I’m writing a song.”
Parmalee has seen its share of successes and lulls since releasing its Stoney Creek debut, Feels Like Carolina, in 2013. Debut single “Musta Had a Good Time” cracked the top 40 on the Country Airplay chart, but the group followed it with their first bona fide Country Airplay chart-topper, “Carolina.” However, subsequent songs failed to match the success of “Carolina,” and by 2019, the group found itself at a creative — and career — crossroads.
The following year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parmlee teamed with labelmate Blanco Brown to release “Just the Way.” The song became the group’s second Country Airplay No. 1 and a pivotal launchpad for its current string of musical success.
“It’s the miracle of timing, of working and not giving up,” says Scott. “Then ‘Just the Way’ gave us direction. After that song [became a hit], we were like, ‘The sound’s got to be right,’ and had ‘Take My Name’ and ‘Girl in Mine.’ That song was just as big for us as when ‘Carolina’ first came out. It’s had a huge impact.’”
There’s more music on the way, as Fell in Love With a Cowgirl is the first of a two-part project. The second half could possibly see the release of the song “Boots on Broadway,” a collaboration with Jelly Roll that the group first teased two years ago.
“It almost made this album, with the seven we have. It was a contender,” Knox says.
“We have to get with Jelly — he’s been so busy,” Matt says. “It’s a conversation of, ‘Is this what you want this collab to be, or do you think we might do something different?’”
They connected with the “I Am Not Okay” hitmaker more than a decade ago, long before Jelly Roll signed with BBR Music Group and broke through in the country space with songs like “Son of a Sinner.”
“When we moved to town, we had the same attorney and he was like, ‘There’s this guy and I think you guys will hit it off,’” Matt says. “We’re both hard workers and just coming from independent backgrounds and stuff. He came to our house, and we wrote together and everyone was just chill.”
With their string of radio hits and headlining shows, it is staggering to consider that the group has yet to garner even a nomination in the group of the year/vocal group of the year category at either of country music’s two most-coveted awards ceremonies, the CMAs and ACMs (their lone nomination came a decade ago, for the ACM’s new vocal duo or group of the year).
“I mean, I don’t know what the criteria is,” Matt says. “Radio has always had a big play in it — if you had a hit, you were probably going to be nominated, right?”
But they take the group’s continual absence from the final nominees in the group-honoring categories with the same dogged determination that’s seen them through previous peaks and valleys this far.
“We’re right there, it’s almost our time,” McSwain says. “We just have to keep having hits, get our crowd coming in and build it, and then it’ll hopefully happen.”
Morgan Wallen says it’s been a while since he’s partaken in the bar scene.
The three-time Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper spoke with Theo Von during an appearance on comedian Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, where they talked about new music, Wallen’s family and the country star’s decision to stay away from drinking establishments since an April 2024 incident in which Wallen was charged with three counts of felony reckless endangerment and one count of disorderly conduct for hurling a chair from the roof of a Nashville building.
At one point, Wallen noted that while his career has brought him great successes, fame does come with elements that are harder to deal with, and it has forced him to make some lifestyle adjustments.
“It’s still weird and there’s parts of that that I don’t like,” Wallen said. “I mean, I think anyone who was to deal with that, it’s not ideal… you know, it’s not ideal to go everywhere, and even if you don’t get bothered, you were on edge the whole time because you thought you might. It’s like, there’s just things that you don’t do, you just don’t do them anymore. But that’s okay, that’s why I’ve taken up hunting so much, I think. Because I can go be with my buddies, I’m the middle of nowhere, I can be at ease, I can not stress out. You just find ways to supplement it.”
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When Theo Von commented that there would likely be “too much hassle” for Wallen to spend time in a bar given his fame and that staying out of bars might be the best thing for him, Wallen responded, “It’s definitely the best thing for me, you know. If you’re using the bar as a specific example, that’s definitely the best thing for me. I ain’t been in a bar since the last time I was in a bar that everybody knows about. The most public time I was in a bar, that’s the last time I was in a bar.”
That “public time” was when Wallen was arrested at Eric Church’s Nashville bar Chief’s in April of last year and charged with three counts of felony reckless endangerment, as well as one count of disorderly conduct for tossing a chair from the roof of the building. Police were standing in front of the establishment when the chair struck the ground three feet from them.
Wallen pleaded guilty and was ultimately sentenced to seven days in a DUI education center and two years supervised probation.
Currently, much of Wallen’s time is likely being spent gearing up for the release of his upcoming album I’m the Problem on May 16, as well as his I’m The Problem Tour, which will launch June 20 in Houston.
Wallen said during the podcast that his new album may not feature as many trap beats as fans are used to hearing on his previous releases such as “Sunrise” and “Ain’t That Some.”
“It’s just subtle changes,” Wallen said. “It don’t have to be huge things, you know? My last album, I had plenty of trap beats and stuff like that. This time I was like, ‘Hey man, let’s tone that back a little bit.’ I’m tired of it, I’m tired of hearing it. So if I’m tired of it they’re probably tired of hearing it. It’s just certain things that, you can still get that same swagger, you can accomplish certain things without doing the exact same thing.”
So far, he’s previewed the album with songs including “Love Somebody,” “Lies Lies Lies,” “I’m the Problem,” “Just in Case” and “Smile.” “Love Somebody” reached No. 1 on the Hot 100, while the other songs each reached into the top 10 on the chart.
Kiley Donohoe has launched Greenhouse Management, with an artist roster that includes “Cowgirls” hitmaker Ernest, as well as artists and hit songwriters Chandler Walters, Rhys Rutherford and Cody Lohden.
Donohoe previously worked at Big Loud since 2018, starting in digital marketing and working with artists over the years including Morgan Wallen, Florida Georgia Line, Ernest and Chris Lane. Four years ago, she transitioned into management, taking on the role of Ernest’s manager.
Donohoe says she plans to keep Greenhouse’s roster small, in order to focus on each artist, telling Billboard, “I want to be able to have the bandwidth for all my clients and super-serve them and work with people I believe in and trust, and who believe and trust in me. It’s not about how large [the company] can get, but working with great people.”
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Greenhouse Management’s title was inspired by the time Iowa native Donohoe spent as a child working in her grandparents’ backyard greenhouse.
“I was thinking about my roots and values of being transparent, like a greenhouse, and what shaped me,” Donohoe says. “I was talking to [hit songwriter, artist and Songs & Daughters leader] Nicolle Galyon about the company name and this new chapter and she suggested the name. It is so important to me to be transparent and to stay true to who you are. I try to stay true to that as a manager.”
“Kiley has always had the artist best interest in mind and will continue to develop into a great manager,” Ernest said in a statement. “I look forward to seeing what the future brings, and I know that her artists are in good hands.”
Chandler Walters, Rhys Rutherford, Greenhouse Management CEO / Manager Kiley Donohoe, Cody Lohden, Matt Schneider
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Walters added, “The first one to take care of you and the last one to let you down. I’ve known Kiley since I moved to town; she’s held the keys to my sanity, and it only makes sense for us to tackle my artist career!”
Ernest, who last year released a musical love letter to his hometown with the album Nashville, Tennessee, has earned multiple ACM, CMA and Grammy nominations, including his current ACM nominations for artist-songwriter of the year, as well as being a co-writer on the ACM song of the year-nominated song “I Had Some Help,” recorded by Morgan Wallen and Post Malone. Lohden has toured with artists including ERNEST, Bailey Zimmerman and Walker Hayes, while Rutherford has contributed writing to songs recorded by Zimmerman (“Is This Really Over?”), Ernest feat. Morgan Wallen (“Hangin’ On”), Kashus Culpepper (“Talk With Me”) and George Pippen (“Rest of Our Life”). Walters is also a co-writer on “I Had Some Help,” and has six cuts on Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion album, seven cuts on Ernest’s Nashville, Tennessee album (including the Jelly Roll collaboration “I Went to College, He Went to Jail,” and is part of Post Malone’s touring band, playing pedal steel. Lohden and Rutherford both have their own new music coming.
“If you’re keeping score at home…”
Anyone who has tuned in to baseball on TV or radio has probably heard Vin Scully or Bob Costas refer to the shorthand used to keep track of the game.
In a parallel world, anyone keeping score at the tavern will understand the results in Jordan Davis’ play-by-play of a guy attempting to drown out his past: “You and your memory, one/ Me and this bar, none.” His team is behind, trying desperately to catch up in what looks like a losing battle.
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When Davis — an avowed sports fan — related to “Bar None” from the outset, it was partly because it reminded him of high school athletics.
“I pitched in baseball, and I was losing a lot,” he recalls. “So this one felt right at home.”
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There haven’t been a ton of country hits centered on baseball — or even baseball metaphors — though a few exist: Alabama’s “Cheap Seats,” Kenny Rogers’ “The Greatest” and Bill Anderson’s “Liars One, Believers Zero” are good examples.
But none of that was at work in the “Bar None” backstory.
“When I brought in the general concept, I knew it was going to be about keeping score, but I didn’t have that lyric all settled,” remembers songwriter Lydia Vaughan (“If I Didn’t Love You,” “Friends Like That”). “I wasn’t having a specific sport in mind. Maybe the sport of heartbreak.”
Vaughan first considered “Bar None” as a title when she heard it in a conversation. She toyed with it, recognizing its colloquial meaning — “without exception” — but also seeing the keeping-score turn of a phrase as an interesting bit of wordplay. Despite fears that it might be too complicated, she introduced it last summer at Nashville’s Skyline Studio during a writing session with Hunter Phelps (“wait in the truck,” “Cold Beer Calling My Name”) and studio owner Ben Johnson (“Liar,” “Truck Bed”). Both her co-writers liked the concept of the score-related “bar none” hook, though Phelps was confused when Vaughan and Johnson considered employing the original meaning.
“I’d never heard the phrase ‘bar none’ before used as ‘no doubt’ or ‘with no exception,’” he says. “She had the hook of the chorus mapped out, and she said the hook, and I was like, ‘Well, that’s awesome,’ without knowing that.”
They spent perhaps 20 minutes debating the familiarity of “bar none” — Phelps even texted his wife, whose response was simple: “Yeah, everybody’s heard that phrase.” Ultimately, he trusted them and they plowed forward, with Johnson developing a fast-paced stomp-clap percussion bed to set a lighter tone.
“That’s actually what, for me, makes the song great,” Vaughan says. “It turns what lyrically is a sad, getting-over-somebody song into more of a fun drinking song, just sonically.”
Johnson devised a cascading instrumental passage for the intro, and it emerged as a signature sound for the piece.
“I actually slowed the track down about 20 beats per minute and played the riff really slow,” Johnson notes. “Then I sped it back up, and even though I played it on guitar, it kind of sounded like a mandolin or a banjo, and it gave it a cool, warbly effect.”
Verse one set the scene: guy attempts to numb his emotional pain at the bar. Verse two established the bottles on the back bar as his teammates. They purposely dropped internal rhymes (“burn,” “bourbon,” “hurtin’,” “certain”) and alliteration (“banged-up broken heart”) into key spots to create some playfulness, and they unintentionally cemented the sports theme with a mid-chorus reference to a scoreboard for the guy’s heartache. That part came with a short, melodic boost.
“Before that, the whole chorus was kind of on three notes,” Johnson says. “[We wanted] to get that part to lift up.”
When they needed a singer for the demo at the end of the day, Phelps was the best option — bar none — for a performance with a modest Lumineers vibe. “It sounds a little folky,” Phelps allows, “but it also sounds a little bluegrass, too.”
Around the time they wrote it, Davis appeared in a CMT Crossroads episode with NeedToBreathe, and he subsequently attempted to write something with a stomp-clap feel that mirrored that band’s core sound. When “Bar None” was sent his direction, he was an easy convert. “I didn’t even have to finish the entire first listen,” Davis says. “Right after that intro, I was like, ‘I’m pretty in on this.’ ”
Davis’ next album was mostly done, but he convinced MCA Nashville to let him cut four more songs, including “Bar None.” Producer Paul DiGiovanni (Travis Denning, Alana Springsteen) booked a session at Nashville’s Sound Stage with drummer Nir Z, bassist Jimmie Lee Sloas, guitarists Ilya Toshinskiy and Derek Wells, and keyboardist Alex Wright.
“That’s been kind of the hometown team for Jordan,” DiGiovanni says. They used the melody’s upper plateau on the “scoreboard” line to gauge the key, lowering it a bit to accommodate Davis’ expectation that it would become significant.
“I knew that it was going to be something that I was going to be playing for a long time and would potentially be going to radio,” he says. “I definitely didn’t want to cut something in a key that I was going to dread to see on the setlist every night. So I bumped it down a little bit, just to make those two notes on the back of the chorus a little easier to grab.”
Nir Z loosened the wire snares under his snare drum to eliminate some of the fuzz in the track’s percussion, and Toshinskiy opened his guitar boat road case to give the supporting track a variety of stringed instruments, with mandolin, banjo and bouzouki among the ream of options.
“He was like a magician [with] his hat, pulling out some crazy string thing I’d never seen before,” DiGiovanni recalls. “We kept most of the stuff, honestly. The song is driven by the acoustics of it, so it’s kind of like a wall of all these different timbres and octaves of different acoustic instruments.”
Davis was keenly aware of the “scoreboard” lines when he laid down the final vocal. “The back half of that chorus lifts pretty good,” he says. “It wasn’t super hard, other than those two lines.”
Trey Keller sang approximately 20 different harmony parts, some of which were blended with the instrumental riff to create a dreamy effect in the middle of “Bar None.” “I just knew he was going to crush this one,” DiGiovanni says.
Appropriate for a song with a sports hook, “Bar None” came up a winner. MCA Nashville released it to country radio on March 24, and with only a few days to accrue spins during the tracking period, it debuted at No. 57 on the Country Airplay chart dated April 5. Its energy is hard to ignore, but when Davis played a stripped-down version, he realized its appeal goes deeper.
“It’s not just a feel song,” he says. “It’s a well-written song. And I was excited. That was the day where I was like, ‘Awesome.’ ”
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