Jason Aldean and His Team Describe Their Long Road to Success at Billboard Country Summit

Aldean’s career has often bucked conventional wisdom, in terms of its approach to radio and touring. Aldean’s managers (Clarence Spalding and Chris Parr of Spalding Management), Kevin Neal (president of Buddy Lee Attractions) and Rick Shedd (senior VP of operations, Broken Bow Records) joined Aldean in retracing his steps from his early days in Nashville — when he performed more than 40 showcases before landing a record deal — to his current headlining tour, which is seeing dates sell out impressively far in advance.

Neal said he recalls going to 10 showcases and wondering why a label wasn’t signing Aldean. The artist admits it was tough. “You get frustrated. Nobody shows up and you feel like you’ve wasted time,” he said of those early showcases.

He said most people don’t know but he had an early deal with Capitol that lasted a year, during which time he didn’t record any music. “I moved here in 1998 and my first single came out in 2005,” Aldean said of all the years he paid dues.

Then, when Aldean’s debut single, “Hicktown,” exploded, Parr recalled his first time seeing the video. “The ‘Hicktown’ video showed up on my desk when I was at CMT. It was like a bolt of lightening,” he said. “I started making calls: ‘Who is THIS guy?'”

Though most new acts head out on the customary radio tour, playing acoustic sets in conference rooms, Aldean took a different approach. “For an artist, that sucks,” he said of the promo tours used as a tool to court radio. “I didn’t do a radio tour. I said ‘if you’re doing any kind of festival, I’ll play it for free.” That tactic allowed radio personnel to see the full impact of Aldean live with his band — and it paid off. “That was the biggest impact at radio,” he said.

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