Scotty McCreery Tells the Stories Behind the Songs Fans Didn’t Hear in the Lyrics

When it comes to country music, the best songs are often the ones that tell a real story. Few artists understand that better than Scotty McCreery.

While co-hosting Backstage Country alongside Elaina Smith, the North Carolina native took listeners behind the music, sharing the inspiration behind some of the songs that have defined his career.

Smith asked McCreery how he celebrated his track “Bottle Rockets” featuring Hootie and the Blowfish topping the charts. The American Idol alum shared he got to celebrate with Darius Rucker and everyone. “Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we had so much fun. It was probably the most fun I've ever had with the song out there, and then the number one party, getting everybody together, the whole gang. We hadn't been together since, I guess, the music video, and it was just getting started, just getting out there.”

McCreery revealed it was almost impossible to get everyone together. “We were throwing out dates left and right. And I think we all landed on one day that worked for everybody. So that was the day of the party. But, yeah, it was fun. And a crazy fact that I didn't know until then was that ‘Bottle Rockets’ was Hootie's first No. 1 single. Obviously, they've had number one records and stuff, but the first single that went No. 1, so it was a big old celebration.”

A good country heartbreak song, McCreery admitted some of his favorite country songs are the sad ones. “I feel like some of my favorite country songs are also the heartbreak, the sad songs, you know, the ‘a tear in your beer kind of songs.’ So, yeah, for me, sometimes I love to pull from real-life stuff.”

He added, “If you've listened to my music, like, ‘Five More Minutes’ or ‘This Is It,’ that's real-life stuff. But I also think it's okay to play the character and just kind of put yourself in those shoes and write from that perspective. So that's what we tried to do with ‘Cab in a Solo,’ and I really enjoyed how it came out.”

McCreery debuted “You Time” in 2020 and shared that he wrote it before the pandemic. “I can't remember if it was when me and Gabi Dugal were dating or when we were just married, but she was still a nurse at Duke Hospital in Carolina, and I was on the road, and it felt every time I was on the road, she wasn't working and she was home, but every time I got off the road, came home, she was working, and we just weren't seeing each other at all.”

It was what inspired the track, McCreery said. “Just need the world to stop so we can just spend some time together. So that's where it came from.”

For more of Scotty McCreery’s songs, subscribe to his YouTube page here.