The C2C Sit Down with Mason Ramsey
Eleven is a very young age to be thrust into the limelight but six years ago, that was when the career of Mason Ramsey really began after a video of him yodelling Hank Williams’s “Lovesick Blues” in a Walmart store went viral and turned him into an overnight sensation.
He released his debut EP “Famous” four months later and the lead single found it’s way inside the Billboard Hot 100 before a second EP “Twang” followed a year later in 2019. We all go through a lot of changes during adolescence, particularly vocally and following the pandemic, the now seventeen year old from Golconda, Illinois returned last year with a new maturing sound and his first EP in four years titled “Falls Into Place”. Earlier this month Mason took his first trip across the pond to appear at C2C: Country to Country in Rotterdam, Berlin, Glasgow and London where we spent some time getting to know him and find out what we can expect from him musically going forward.
Welcome to London!
“Well thank you, it’s great to be here.”
I managed to see you over the weekend as were both in Berlin, which was my first time in Germany and I hear this is your first time in Europe full stop.
“Yes, absolutely. This is my first time in the United Kingdom and it has been my first time in Europe. I’ve been having a lot of fun, we’re here for the C2C festival and we just got Berlin too, so it’s been pretty wild and feels pretty crazy.”
I found in Germany that the people there were so friendly and they all speak English which helps especially when your German is very limited but here in London will be a different experience and I know you’re up in Glasgow too, which I haven’t seen so can’t tell you too much about. C2C in London is wild, it’s twenty thousand people, pretty much all of the daytime stages are standing and it’s a really crazy vibe which is a lot of fun.
He released his debut EP “Famous” four months later and the lead single found it’s way inside the Billboard Hot 100 before a second EP “Twang” followed a year later in 2019. We all go through a lot of changes during adolescence, particularly vocally and following the pandemic, the now seventeen year old from Golconda, Illinois returned last year with a new maturing sound and his first EP in four years titled “Falls Into Place”. Earlier this month Mason took his first trip across the pond to appear at C2C: Country to Country in Rotterdam, Berlin, Glasgow and London where we spent some time getting to know him and find out what we can expect from him musically going forward.
Welcome to London!
“Well thank you, it’s great to be here.”
I managed to see you over the weekend as were both in Berlin, which was my first time in Germany and I hear this is your first time in Europe full stop.
“Yes, absolutely. This is my first time in the United Kingdom and it has been my first time in Europe. I’ve been having a lot of fun, we’re here for the C2C festival and we just got Berlin too, so it’s been pretty wild and feels pretty crazy.”
I found in Germany that the people there were so friendly and they all speak English which helps especially when your German is very limited but here in London will be a different experience and I know you’re up in Glasgow too, which I haven’t seen so can’t tell you too much about. C2C in London is wild, it’s twenty thousand people, pretty much all of the daytime stages are standing and it’s a really crazy vibe which is a lot of fun.
It’s great to have you here and you’ve now started putting out your own music again because the EP came out last year and it is the first thing we’ve heard since you grew up really. When “Twang” came out you were barely a teenager and in the four years between them, we had this world event that played havoc with everything. From a musical development standpoint, did the pandemic almost help you to not have to rush things as you were basically growing up?
“Absolutely, it gave time for my voice to change and it gave me time to grow up, mature and really just become a better writer, a better speaker and maybe even stronger vocally. I just had a new single come out and last year in October I had my new EP come out so that was really exciting and we’re about to do a tour so, everything is really kicking back up and I’m really excited for everything.”
Talking about “Falls Into Place” which was the EP that you put out last year where you co-wrote four of the five tracks and “She Got It Outta Me” was one that came to you with Tofer Brown and Liz Rose amongst the writers on that one. Why did you decide that was one which you wanted to get on this project?
“I kinda wanted to do it but I felt like if I was to release it when I was younger, because we had the songs for a bit before I released them, I just really wouldn’t have been able to relate at the time. I was still in the Walmart phase so talking about love and whatnot at twelve is kind of strange so, we decided to wait a few years to get that out because I just really liked the feel of it and felt like when I got older I would relate to, so now I am older I can relate to it now.”
“Absolutely, it gave time for my voice to change and it gave me time to grow up, mature and really just become a better writer, a better speaker and maybe even stronger vocally. I just had a new single come out and last year in October I had my new EP come out so that was really exciting and we’re about to do a tour so, everything is really kicking back up and I’m really excited for everything.”
Talking about “Falls Into Place” which was the EP that you put out last year where you co-wrote four of the five tracks and “She Got It Outta Me” was one that came to you with Tofer Brown and Liz Rose amongst the writers on that one. Why did you decide that was one which you wanted to get on this project?
“I kinda wanted to do it but I felt like if I was to release it when I was younger, because we had the songs for a bit before I released them, I just really wouldn’t have been able to relate at the time. I was still in the Walmart phase so talking about love and whatnot at twelve is kind of strange so, we decided to wait a few years to get that out because I just really liked the feel of it and felt like when I got older I would relate to, so now I am older I can relate to it now.”
The title track itself was one that you wrote with Jenna (Paulette) and Lauren McLamb, I know a lot of Jenna’s stuff and have been a really big fan of hers, where Lauren I’m not as familiar with but how were the two girls to write with and how long have you had this one kicking around for?
“We had written “Falls Into Place” at the start of 2022, when I started getting back into the swing of things and my voice was still changing so that’s why I was doing more of the writing stuff but it was one of the first songs that we had written. My manager Pete set the write up and I knew Jenna very well, we had been on tour together in 2019 and Lauren I got to know after that write who’s a very sweet girl and very fun to write with. Both of them have amazing ideas and I just really loved writing with them.”
Coming back to when I saw you in Berlin, I really liked the jackets that your two guys playing with you had on. I was stood behind you with your manager and was looking at them thinking they look so cool with the whole classic leather vibe, were you involved in any of the design for them?
“I actually had help designing it, personally I have a leather jacket and I like leather very much, people will see me wearing it quite a bit. I picked out leather for the band because I thought it looks cool then we put my name, the name of my band on it and like a rose kind of theme, with thorns and blood on the thorns. It was not easy to come up with, it took some time, quite a bit actually but once we figured it out we really liked it, so we went with it.”
Your band are called The Showtime Band aren’t they?
“Yes, that used to be my nickname. It was Showtime Ramsey.”
That sounds like you could have been a WWE wrestler from the nineties.
“Ha-ha Showtime Ramsey! It was my nickname so I decided to give the name to my band and blend it with me.”
I like it, it’s a cool brand and it really fits what you do. I guess with you, people have an image or an expectation of what you are going to be like as an artist. People out there probably do still think of you as the Walmart kid but I think they will be pleasantly surprised when they see a young man that is doing your thing and doing it really well.
“I am kind of going away from what I was and into what I want to be now. I feel like I really like the direction that I’m going towards and I feel like the fans really like it as well. Style wise, I’ve changed quite a bit where I really like stuff from the sixties and seventies.”
“We had written “Falls Into Place” at the start of 2022, when I started getting back into the swing of things and my voice was still changing so that’s why I was doing more of the writing stuff but it was one of the first songs that we had written. My manager Pete set the write up and I knew Jenna very well, we had been on tour together in 2019 and Lauren I got to know after that write who’s a very sweet girl and very fun to write with. Both of them have amazing ideas and I just really loved writing with them.”
Coming back to when I saw you in Berlin, I really liked the jackets that your two guys playing with you had on. I was stood behind you with your manager and was looking at them thinking they look so cool with the whole classic leather vibe, were you involved in any of the design for them?
“I actually had help designing it, personally I have a leather jacket and I like leather very much, people will see me wearing it quite a bit. I picked out leather for the band because I thought it looks cool then we put my name, the name of my band on it and like a rose kind of theme, with thorns and blood on the thorns. It was not easy to come up with, it took some time, quite a bit actually but once we figured it out we really liked it, so we went with it.”
Your band are called The Showtime Band aren’t they?
“Yes, that used to be my nickname. It was Showtime Ramsey.”
That sounds like you could have been a WWE wrestler from the nineties.
“Ha-ha Showtime Ramsey! It was my nickname so I decided to give the name to my band and blend it with me.”
I like it, it’s a cool brand and it really fits what you do. I guess with you, people have an image or an expectation of what you are going to be like as an artist. People out there probably do still think of you as the Walmart kid but I think they will be pleasantly surprised when they see a young man that is doing your thing and doing it really well.
“I am kind of going away from what I was and into what I want to be now. I feel like I really like the direction that I’m going towards and I feel like the fans really like it as well. Style wise, I’ve changed quite a bit where I really like stuff from the sixties and seventies.”
I guess that where there are people that were fans of what you were doing before and we have had a gap from then to now with putting out music, so where the style is a bit different, does part of you still have to be conscious towards the fans who were there from the start as you go through musical change?
“Absolutely. I still do “Lovesick Blues” and am still able to yodel it. That ice is slowly melting over there but I still pay homage to that and anyway that I can give a hint of that to the older audience, I try to.”
In the UK not everyone will know the Walmart story so you are just Mason Ramsey, a seventeen year old artist from Illinois and you get to just be you, is that a cool way to be starting off with a new market over here?
“Yes, I do think that is cool but I also don’t mind if people do recognise me for that. Surprisingly I was able to walk around and no one really recognised me over in Berlin, Rotterdam or Amsterdam so, I guess I will have to see how it goes here as well.”
Yeah, C2C in London is a different world compared to Berlin and Rotterdam where you are almost looking at a smaller CMA Fest type vibe but it’s all indoors. People will want to talk to you and ask you about songs that you have only done a snippet of as you tried something out on TikTok or that you haven’t thought about playing for years but I’m sure you will love it and will go down really well so, thank you for taking the time and we are really glad that you are here Mason.
“Thank you, you’re very kind. I’m very glad to be here and very excited to play for the fans here.”
The new single “Blue Over You” from Mason Ramsey is out now and is available HERE. You can find details of all of Mason’s upcoming US shows by checking out his WEBSITE or you can be the first to be in the know about any forthcoming new releases by following along on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK TWITTER & FACEBOOK.
C2C: Country to Country will return in 2025 for three days of festivities in Berlin over the weekend of March 7th to 9th which you will be able to find further detail on their WEBSITE and on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK where you will also be able to relive highlights from this year’s event.
The event will then roll into London, Glasgow and Belfast the following weekend between March 14th and 16th which you can keep a look out for all forthcoming details at the event WEBSITE or socials (INSTAGRAM TWITTER FACEBOOK) with line-up details expected to be announced later in the year.
“Absolutely. I still do “Lovesick Blues” and am still able to yodel it. That ice is slowly melting over there but I still pay homage to that and anyway that I can give a hint of that to the older audience, I try to.”
In the UK not everyone will know the Walmart story so you are just Mason Ramsey, a seventeen year old artist from Illinois and you get to just be you, is that a cool way to be starting off with a new market over here?
“Yes, I do think that is cool but I also don’t mind if people do recognise me for that. Surprisingly I was able to walk around and no one really recognised me over in Berlin, Rotterdam or Amsterdam so, I guess I will have to see how it goes here as well.”
Yeah, C2C in London is a different world compared to Berlin and Rotterdam where you are almost looking at a smaller CMA Fest type vibe but it’s all indoors. People will want to talk to you and ask you about songs that you have only done a snippet of as you tried something out on TikTok or that you haven’t thought about playing for years but I’m sure you will love it and will go down really well so, thank you for taking the time and we are really glad that you are here Mason.
“Thank you, you’re very kind. I’m very glad to be here and very excited to play for the fans here.”
The new single “Blue Over You” from Mason Ramsey is out now and is available HERE. You can find details of all of Mason’s upcoming US shows by checking out his WEBSITE or you can be the first to be in the know about any forthcoming new releases by following along on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK TWITTER & FACEBOOK.
C2C: Country to Country will return in 2025 for three days of festivities in Berlin over the weekend of March 7th to 9th which you will be able to find further detail on their WEBSITE and on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK where you will also be able to relive highlights from this year’s event.
The event will then roll into London, Glasgow and Belfast the following weekend between March 14th and 16th which you can keep a look out for all forthcoming details at the event WEBSITE or socials (INSTAGRAM TWITTER FACEBOOK) with line-up details expected to be announced later in the year.