Diary of a Player (21 page)

So I boarded a plane and went off into the great unknown.

So the
very same day
that I had woken up with this epiphany, my phone rang. “Hello? Is this Brad? This is Kim Williams.”

We went out the first night and it went fine, but I had one more night free while I was there. So we got back together for a second dinner. On that second night, I was scheduled to go on
After MidNite,
a syndicated late-night radio show hosted by a great guy named Blair Garner. So I invited Kim to come along with me and hang out. On that night, she got to see me do what I do best. Which is definitely not dinner conversation. She watched as I sat in front of a microphone with my secret weapon, my equivalent of the magic Green Lantern superpowers ring: my guitar. And
the only prayer I ever had of winning her heart—anyone's heart, for that matter.

S
o as we began to date, in keeping with the guise of why I called her in the first place, I figured I needed to have Kim appear in a music video.

The “I'm Gonna Miss Her” video was a great way to break the ice together because not only was it fun, but she also became part of something that was an important turning point in my career. A change of direction that was much needed for me.

In this case, the first step toward this turning point was getting my record company to release the song as a single in the first place. Even though this was the same song that helped get me a recording deal, there was some serious resistance at my record company against putting the song out as a single. When I went to Arista to discuss this matter, I was already ticked off because of a recent mishap—I'd recorded a song called “Too Country” with George Jones, Buck Owens, and Bill Anderson that won the CMA Award for Musical Event, and I think it could very well have won a Grammy too. The
only problem was someone at the label forgot to submit our record for Grammy consideration. And songs have to be submitted in a certain manner to qualify. So that was that. Pretty embarrassing for my label, and I was furious—not so much for myself but for the genuine country legends on the track; I really wanted to help those guys get a Grammy, which most of them had never won.

So I went into my label with a little attitude that day, and my righteous rage allowed me to sit there with Joe Galante and say, “Well, I think you're about to make another mistake and release the wrong song next.” I wanted “I'm Gonna Miss Her” out, but the company was worried that the song was going to offend women. I think they figured they had a pretty good thing going by then with me singing nice, romantic ballads, and they didn't want to risk upsetting the apple cart.

Sometimes I only
think
I know better, but this time I actually knew it in my bones. I'd been playing “I'm Gonna Miss Her” live, and I knew the song was a road-tested crowd favorite with men
and
women. It had never failed to bring the house down. This was one of those times in a music career when you're not just pushing for a single; you're ultimately pushing for a little freedom to be yourself and to let people know who you are in a more honest way. Even though I was
on a bit of a roll on country radio, I felt the need to show the world I was not just another guy with a hat and a few romantic hits—that I had a personality and possibly even a functioning sense of humor. Lord knows getting a laugh or two never held back my heroes, like Little Jimmy Dickens, Buck Owens, and Vince Gill.

Perhaps wisely, I didn't try to argue that point. What I said to my record company was “I'm Gonna Miss Her” would sell well for a very basic reason—people responded to it. To close the deal, I went off the cuff and pitched my crazy concept for a video for the song. Imagine, I told them, Dan Patrick as the sportscaster officiating the fishing tournament, and me as a guy whose significant other didn't want him to go fishing with his band and a bunch of other fishing buddies, like Little Jimmy Dickens. And then to represent all sides, we would go on
The Jerry Springer Show
with Jerry Springer in the video playing himself—and a big battle of the sexes would ensue about this very important issue. The big boss, Joe Galante—now the most powerful man on Music Row—took this idea all in and said, “Can you really pull that all off?” I told Joe, “I think so”—even though I hadn't ever even spoken to any of these people. He said, “Okay. We believe in you. Make it happen.”

So I hit the phones and started to call upon the kindness of strangers. I asked my agent, Rob Beckham at William Morris, to get a number for Dan Patrick, who I knew had said a few nice things about me on his radio show. When I got ahold of Dan, he said he was in. Next I called Jerry Springer. I think I caught Jerry in the middle of a show taping, but he couldn't have been nicer and told me he was a country music fan. And of course, there was no woman I wanted to abuse me on camera more than Kim.

The next thing I knew, this whole crazy gang was coming together to make this video, and thankfully, it became absolutely everything I dreamed it would be. With a lot of help from that video, “I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin' Song)”—the third single from
Part II
—took my album and shot it way up the charts. The single went to number one for two weeks in a row, turned the album into a much bigger hit, and gave my fans the first large-scale glimpse at that other side of my personality. The success of “I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin' Song)” gave me a lifetime fishing license to just be myself.

One day when it was clear the song was a smash, the head of promotion for Arista Nashville, a great man named Bobby Kraig, who had strongly resisted releasing it as a single, phoned me. “Brad,” he said, “I've never been more surprised
and happy to be wrong. This one is going down as one of my favorite achievements.” Trust me, I was happier than he was. Somehow the very same goofy fishing song that helped me land my record deal had come back into my life and helped me regain my creative freedom.

B
y now, the team that had helped me make my first two albums had gone from wannabe writers, players, and producers to full-blown pros. So when I began work on my third album, I used the same cast of characters who'd helped me get this far. For the first time, I felt like I could focus on the ground I wanted to cover. “Mud on the Tires”—which I wrote with Chris DuBois—set the tone for the whole third album: more earthy, rootsy, and even outdoorsy. Some of the songs were written while I was dating Kim, like “Little Moments,” another one I wrote with Chris. I remember playing Kim the song over the phone while we were dating long-distance and the effect it had on her. Things were really clicking.

My music started feeling more grounded in the reality of life. There are so many songs I love on
Mud on the Tires
. My favorite might be “Celebrity,” because it started me down a path
of not being limited to traditional country themes. It was my first attempt at depicting the world outside of country music, all the while keeping the style of country. Up until then, I had sung about fishing and dating and family—the sorts of subjects that lend themselves to country music so easily. Now I began to think—what if I wrote a country song about the whole insane pop culture phenomenon that was becoming more and more a part of my life? It turned out to be a major turning point because it opened up my world as a songwriter and as an artist.

The fact that “Celebrity” did so well gave me the license to write about anything I saw around me and still have it feel like a real country song. That opened things up so that I could write “Alcohol” and “Online” and “Ticks” and so many other songs that would follow. I felt I could say what I wanted to say and even nudge the listener in the ribs a little bit.

I think my fans began to get a sense that I'm not just a guy picking songs to be my next hit—that these songs are more meaningful than that to me. Hit songs are great, but now I felt like I'd opened up the lines of communication and could actually comment on life and this world we share. And people were listening. The fact that country music fans and country music radio gave me that freedom meant the world to me.

To all the younger artists out there, here's what I've learned: Define yourself instead of allowing others to do that important job for you. Don't let anybody paint you into a corner or tell you who you are. You tell them.

Hit songs are great, but now I felt like I'd opened up the lines of communication and could actually comment on life.

Something that always astounds me is the way a simple three-minute song, written in a matter of hours, can become a living breathing monster all its own. Songwriters are the ultimate Dr. Frankensteins. We put very little by way of electricity or sweat into actual songwriting, and the next thing you know, studios are booked, albums are being pressed, video locations are being prepped, and people are employed. I'll never forget driving up to the set of the “Celebrity” video. Here's Jason Alexander in the makeup chair, Little Jimmy Dickens has flown out to appear with the Bachelorette Trista Rehn, and William Shatner is pulling into the parking lot. This was a big deal to me because beyond being a lifelong music lover, I'm also a true American child of television. And you can imagine what it is like to see your song depicted by legendary screen actors. I was having more fun than anyone should ever be allowed to have.

Mud on the Tires
also marked the debut of the Kung Pao Buckaroos, an old-timey audio comedy troupe featuring three Country Music Hall of Famers and some of the funniest guys I know—Little Jimmy Dickens, “Whispering Bill” Anderson, and arguably the greatest country singer ever, George Jones. The Kung Pao Buckaroos appeared on a track called “Spaghetti Western Swing,” which also featured a musician who had in recent years become another of my favorite guitar players, Redd Volkaert. Redd made a name for himself playing pure honky-tonk swing in the clubs on Broadway in Nashville. The man's an absolute monster player, and soon all the other players in town, like Brent Mason, Vince Gill, and I, would go check him out any chance we got. Eventually, Redd went on tour with Merle Haggard himself, then decided to move to Austin, Texas, where he could play live music to his heart's content. He has shaped my playing in recent years more than any other player. I love what he does so much that when I had the chance to play talent booker instead of talent, I offered him a gig that I hoped would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance: playing my wedding reception.

K
im and I got married out in California in the chapel at Pepperdine University overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu. We got hitched in California because Kim was still filming
According to Jim,
and all of her friends were out there. And of course, her friends are more important than mine. Take note, future grooms.

Kim and I pulled off a unique trick with our wedding. We invited our families and our close friends to the rehearsal dinner—about fifty people—and stressed that we really wanted to share that special time with them before the next day, when there would be a big reception with 250 people or so and a honky-tonk band complete with plenty of Telecaster twang. So there we all were, gathered together in the church, and the wedding planner started telling everybody, “Okay, here's how it's going to happen tomorrow. Brad, you spit out your gum and stand here, and Kim, you come on down the aisle.”