July 19, 2012

Jason’s ‘Ride’ Bursts Out of the Gate

Jason's 'Ride' Bursts Out of the Gate

It’s been a very good week for Jason Aldean. While toasting his latest No. 1 song, “Fly Over States,” at Nashville’s ASCAP offices on Tuesday, the country star was enjoying the early success of his newest single, “Take a Little Ride.” The track was just released Monday, and is hitting radio with a vengeance. Aldean says that in setting up his forthcoming album, he’s trying to keep with a winning formula.

“I think if you look back at the history of each record that we have had out, every album we’ve come out with something more up-tempo, something… radio friendly, and the second, third, and fourth singles are where we branch out a little bit,” he admits. “But, I think the song is a great one to kick off the new album with.”

Not only has the song performed well on the air the past few days, but fans have stormed their computers and smart phones to download it as well. At press time, the song was the top single on all of iTunes, a fact that pleased the Georgia native.

“I think this is the first time we’ve ever put a song up on iTunes the same day we released it to radio. The song’s been out a day, and we’re sitting at number one on iTunes, which is a big deal,” he glowed. “If we can hold that for a few weeks, that would be really nice.”

Aldean says that the preparations for his upcoming album were not much unlike what he has done in the past. “I don’t know if we did anything differently to prepare to cut the record,” he said. “I think that for me, I’m a lot more confident and a lot more sure of myself than the first couple of albums. We didn’t really know what our direction was. We thought ‘There’s a bunch of songs we like, nobody knows who we are, so cut them and see what happens, and go play my show. Then, all of a sudden, it all came together. From Wide Open to this point, I think it was a case of me getting more comfortable and sure of myself of what my style was.”

Read the rest of this article including more Q&A here.