Before releasing his twin records, ‘Son Of The Mountains’ and ‘The Medicine Will,’ with a live stream event on YouTube a few days ago, Brad Paisley talked about them in a chat with Variety. The country artist mentioned how his home state and past musical projects, including collaborations with rock artists, played roles in creating these songs. He explained:
“It came about because of a few songs that I wrote that really just felt like the right thing to write, one of them being ‘The Medicine Will,’ another being ‘Son of the Mountains.’ And then this slant of looking at, I guess, how this place shaped how I look at the world. I look at this world through the eyes of somebody who grew up in that situation, and these are unique people, really unique.”
Speaking about life in West Virginia and the change that came after his career took off there, the singer added:
“And you can’t put them in a box and say this is exactly who they are at all times. They’re very free-thinking, really emotionally intelligent, and resilient people where I come from up there. And it was fun to go back after all these years and really explore that musically. Because sometimes you go off on these tangents in a career, and I don’t know that you lose your way, but you certainly —in a good way — get lost, from Hollywood red carpets to doing really fun side projects, whether that be playing with rock legends or getting to know my heroes at the Opry.”
He went on to share:
“But to go back there and really see that not only is everything that I think about the world sort of shaped by that place but since I left, it’s been devastated. It’s been attacked. It’s been truly exploited and targeted. And so it became really important to tell that story.”
During the chat, Paisley also talked about the content of his new songs, one being about the goods of his home state, the other focusing on the opioid crisis there. Calling the tracks the ‘two sides of a coin,’ the singer said he didn’t want to ‘turn a blind eye’ to his home’s ‘reality’ by only releasing ‘Son Of The Mountains.’ He revealed:
“And at the same time, I’m really glad they both are coming out because I think if you only put out ‘The Medicine’ right now, that’d be the whole story. But I definitely think the two of them together help set the picture for the rest of this album.”
You can watch the music videos for the songs below.
