Jason Eady Shares His New Single+ More

Jason Eady has been considered a top notch singer-songwriter for years. After a long break from releasing his great music to radio, Eady is back on the air, and better than ever with 'OK Whiskey'. Jason stopped by the KEAN 105 Afternoon Show to talk about his new music, and everything else going on in his life.

In the first part of our conversation, Jason explained that he is focusing more on his musical roots, which has resulted in a more country sound his last couple of albums, including the new single. "Yeah, it's pretty country. My last two records, I've kinda gone back to my more traditional roots." As for his hiatus from pushing his music to Texas radio, Eady tells us, "I did it early on [in my career], and I've really just been building my base. I've really concentrated on just getting out there and playing live, and building an organic following and connecting with people. And, I don't know, it just seems like now is a good time to jump back in those waters."

Eady told the story about how Abilene inspired a song on his new album, 'Daylight & Dark'. "I played up at the Lucky Mule with Hayes Carll about 18 months ago, I guess, and we were riding in. And I was trying to figure out where the bar was. And I was looking it up, and I thought it was on the east side of town, and it turns out it's on the west side of town...and so I said 'It's on the other side of Abilene'. As soon as I said it, I wrote it down, and it ended up being a song on the new record, called 'The Other Side of Abilene'". Take a listen to a clip of the song:

Jason also talked about how his fans have responded to 'Daylight & Dark' in the few months since its release. "It's great, you know. I mean, it seems people are really responding to it. I switched course my last record, and really went pretty hardcore country. I grew up on real traditional country music, is what I've always played. And when I started putting records out, at that point in my life, I was leaning more towards the roots and, you know, swampy stuff, which is another part of what I do. But 3-4 years ago I started playing with some friends - a bunch of bands that I play with - and for fun, we would all get together on a couple Sunday nights a month, and do just old country standards. Just for fun...and, man I just reconnected to that music. And I noticed that once I did that, everything I started writing from that point on leaned that way.". Here's the first part of our conversation with Jason Eady:

Jason Eady brought his guitar into the studio with him, and did us the honor of playing 'Lonesome Down And Out' from his latest CD. He explains, "This is one that I wrote with my new wife. I got married a month ago today. She's a great singer and songwriter as you know, Courtney Patton. This is the first song we ever wrote together." Take a listen:

Jason Eady - Lonesome Down And Out

Jason's wife contributed a lot to his latest album, including a duet ('We Might Just Miss Each Other') and harmonies throughout the CD. Eady tells us, "Harmony is such a big part of what I do. I write a lot of songs a lot of times with the harmony in mind, and so it defines the songs to me. When you use somebody on the record, and you can't reproduce it live, it takes away from it. So [on Daylight & Dark] My harmony singers on the record are people that I sing with live a lot. So what you hear on the album, when you come see it live it's the exact same thing."

The duet with Patton on 'Daylight & Dark, Eady says, "I think that's gonna lead into, next year we may do a little duets record, like an old school, like George & Tammy, Porter & Dolly. Not a harmony thing, but a full on duet. Guy-girl singing back and forth. So, we're trying to write that right now, and see what we come up with.". The concept came from a place that I wish more ideas came from today - listening to classic country albums. Jason explains, "We're pretty obsessed with vinyl records. I know that's kind of a trendy thing, but we've been doing that for a long time. And that's really what got us into that. We bought a bunch of those old duet records, and we'll sit around the house and play them, and we just thought 'man, nobody's doing this anymore'. A lot of people will include duets or it's like, one guy's singing and the other person singing on the songs. But no, they were staring at each other back and forth, one takes one verse, one takes the other. Yeah, I love that stuff."

Eady talked about live dates this summer he has lined up with Adam Hood. "'Southern Brothers Tour', that's what we're calling it. We've been friends forever...we're calling it a tour, but it's kinda going on through the summer, just here and there. We're all on stage at the same time. So it's my band, and then Adam and I are on stage the whole time. It's like a song swap, but full band. It's a big, 2-hour show. It's a lot of fun. Because we both - with southern music, we come from the same place but it's two sides of that coin. [Hood is] more on the soul side of that, and I'm more on the country side of that. But we love what each other does, it's just not what we do. he doesn't really do the country thing, and I don't really do what he does. So this is a chance for us each to get to also dabble in the thing that we don't get to do very often."

Take a listen to the second part of our conversation with Jason Eady:

You can go see Jason Eady live in Abilene at The Station on June 7th. Find out more about what's going on with Jason, his latest projects, live shows, and buy his music from Eady's official website. You can also "like" Eady's Facebook page and follow him on Twitter, too. And if you haven't heard it yet, check out Jason's latest single, 'OK Whiskey' here: