HostJolene: Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us today. We appreciate it. I talked to you a couple of years ago just before a concert, and you were getting ready to release a new album at the time which for one reason or another just didn’t come out. And now it is out and you are on the airwaves again.
Neal McCoy: Except if it was two years ago, then it wasn’t this album.
HostJolene: It was Luckiest Man in the World. What happened to it?
Neal McCoy: I was at Warner Brothers on their artist protection program. That’s where the artists go and they protect you from the rest of the world because no one hears from you again. *laughs* And the album just never came out. It was one of those things where they changed some main people in the company and my project just never came out.
HostJolene: Did you get to keep any of the songs on the album?
Neal McCoy: I got to keep absolutely none of them.
HostJolene: Oh my gosh. And I know there was one on there that was a live thing that you did for your fans. So you didn’t even get to keep that one?
Neal McCoy: “I’m Your Biggest Fan,” no ma’am. They gave us the opportunity to buy it from them when we parted ways, but we just didn’t feel it was a fair price so we left it there. So this whole new project is on my own record label and it is a whole new album.
HostJolene: I’m glad you answered that because it was something I was really wondering about. I knew that you were really excited about “I’m Your Biggest Fan” especially.
Neal McCoy: I really do love that one. We still close every show with that song. It is very special, the words are very special.
HostJolene: With this one you have “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On” which was a lot of fun and it’s on the airwaves and everyone’s playing it and requesting it. And you are on a brand new label. What were you thinking when this started happening after so long?
Neal McCoy: Well, first we were just looking at the label, looking at the material and thinking, “gee I just hope radio will give us a fair shot with the song.” And they did and the public responded exactly how I hoped they would and thought they would if they had the chance to hear it. But backing up a little bit, the beauty of it is that when I first started looking for songs I just went and recorded 11 or 12 songs that I just loved that I thought people would enjoy for whatever reason. And there’s a couple of love songs, but “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On” was just a fun song. And I tend to think that if I was at a major label that they wouldn’t have let me release that as a first single. Because we did catch a little bit of flack at radio when we decided, well it wasn’t even a we, when I decided what the single was going to be. So I just told our promotion people, I told Karen Cane and my management for the label that I just like this song and I think it will do well if radio will just give it a chance. And eventually radio gave it a chance and it responded exactly like I hoped it would. But you know I didn’t run it past test groups, past research groups and give them my most favorite five songs and let them check them. I just said, “You know what? I like “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On.” And when we released it to radio we had people saying, “Golly, you’re trying to launch a new record label with a song like “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On” and my promotion staff did a wonderful job of convincing them that if they’d just play it the fans would like it. And the fans loved it and it was a big song for us. But I just picked it, and said that’s going to be the first single, and everybody went to work.
HostJolene: How long did it take you to come up for material for this album?
Neal McCoy: We had some time to look because we were still in the process of trying to figure out the record label. So I probably looked for about a year. And you know a lot of times when an artist records albums, it’s where they are in life. Those are the songs they lean towards. If you are working with an artist that just recently went through a divorce or had a family loss, or whatever, then they tend to lean more towards those kinds of songs. And I’m at a great point in life. That’s why I just tried to listen to music and I wanted it to be like if someone took our album home and played it that it would be similar to going to one of our concerts. And you’ve been to one of our concerts and that is all about just covering the gamut of different kinds of songs and different emotions and that is what this album is about. And that is why we can do “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On” and go to a song like “You Let Me Be The Hero” and to “Day-O (Hillbilly Rap),” that fun thing, and it’s just a well rounded album. And that’s what I wanted to do with this album.
