The debut of Country Bay Music Festival on Key Biscayne last year may have been a gamble, but it paid off with stunning waterfront views, carnival rides, and a lineup that included country music’s biggest names.
The Festival made its eagerly awaited return to the iconic Miami Marine Stadium, with a brand-new second stage that will focus on line dancing and live music by country music’s most prominent up-and-coming artists as well as chart-toppers on the main stage, over 24 acts in all Saturday, November 9 and Sunday, November 10.
In addition to superstars Carrie Underwood and Zac Brown Band, we’re looking forward to Dustin Lynch, who has “built one of the most consistent recording careers in modern country music” (Billboard), achieving over 4 billion cumulative global streams. And his performance was spectacular. His sixth studio album, Killed The Cowboy (Broken Bow Records), features the #1 hit “Chevrolet (featuring Jelly Roll),” a remake with the swinging familiar melody of Dobie Gray’s 1973 hit “Drift Away”.
We caught up [before the festival] with Dustin on the road.
What can we expect at the Florida show? A mix of all the albums or more from the current album?
Dustin Lynch: Well, at Florida shows, we always bring the party, but Florida brings it right back to us. And our shows are really interactive. We love to feed off that live energy. [At] this point in the year, it feels like we’re firing on all cylinders. We’ve played the show a lot of times, continue to make improvements and get the setlist. I think exactly how perfect it can be with the songs we’re playing in the show right now.
The show is really strong. And it’ll be a mix of the albums, for sure. Obviously, we’ve got to play a bunch of the hits. I don’t like getting the hater mill if we don’t play a big hit song that somebody’s spent their money to come see us play live. So, we’ll do all the hits and sprinkle in some new songs from the newer albums, maybe some older albums, too. There’s still some songs that we didn’t have time to get to before we had move on, those songs are recorded for another album to put out. So, we’ll go back and kind of touch on some great songs from past albums that weren’t singles either. And keep it fresh. We love keeping it fresh each night.
Let’s talk about the songs. How did the idea for “Chevrolet “come about? Never heard a song remade that way.
Dustin Lynch: “Chevrolet” came from a few songwriter buddies of mine that tried to do a new take on a modern day hit or a hit from the past. Just done it a different way. And “Chevrolet” takes a classic melody of “Drift Away”. It’s been a proven hit for multiple artists over the decades and we just put a new country storyline to it, one that I fell in love with right away. I think that’s why it’s connected so well is it’s a little bit of that fairy tale, country boy, country girl story. And we’ve noticed our younger fan base maybe isn’t as familiar with “Drift Away” as we originally thought that would be, so we come across as just a great melody for the first time some have heard it. So that’s really cool. Being our 10th number one is awesome. We knew it was going to be a big song for our career because all the cell phones would come up and people were singing it really loud from the get-go as soon as the album came out. “Chevrolet” is one of those moments in the career. One of those big bright shining beams of light that we’ll always get to look back on and smile about.
How does it feel to sing “Killed the Cowboy “to an audience of cowboys? Can they relate?
Dustin Lynch: The “Killed the Cowboy” is kind of a; I don’t want to say experimental. That’s not the right description of it. But it was art. It was a song that we just went for and didn’t really let the genre of country music wrangle us in. I wanted to go really industrial with the production. And I think that’s kind of where we landed. It’s almost a 50 Shades of Gray type of drama to it. That’s kind of where I steered the band in the studio. It’s a song that’s really talking about the emotion. And for me, the ups and downs of relationships, which is a fun ride, both the ups and the downs. There’s even a breakup and there’s that sense of newness of what’s on the other side of this heartbreak and the butterflies in your stomach because it’s a big world out there. And I live this song. I’m still searching for my forever person. And to do that, you’ve got to try on love. And for some of us, it takes a lot longer than others. So, it’s a lot of fun to sing. It’s a very cool artsy moment in the show. And yeah, I’m glad the video evokes that emotion. We kind of just kept that through the visual as well.
“Small Town Boy “has over 171 million views, 4.4 billion global streams collectively, why do think your video are so popular?
Dustin Lynch: Yeah, “Small Town Boy” is still one of our staples. I don’t know if it’s the song that people kind of connect the dots to me with, but it’s definitely one of the songs. Top five for sure. And it really encapsulates what our brand is and who I am as a guy. That’s what our brand is as a band on stage. We’re all kids from small towns with that kind of came from nothing and just had a dream to write country songs and play instruments and being a rock and roll band and man. Some kind of way we’re still pulling it off. And I think it just connects. Country music connects with listeners because it evokes emotion in something they can relate to whether it’s the lyric or just the melody. You know, the song has a cool kind of swaggy, sexier type of thing to it that back when it came out was kind of one of one. I think the genre has kind of moved its direction over the course of the years, but once “Small Town Boy” came out of it was something that really stood out. And I think that’s why it did such big things for us.
The Country Bay Music Festival happened Nov. 9-10 at the historic Miami Marine Stadium, just southeast of downtown on Virginia Key in Biscayne Bay. For future informaiton about the festival, visit www.countrybaymusicfestival.com
