The Highways Sit Down with Corey Kent
Oklahoma born and now Dallas, Texas based hitmaker Corey Kent is making trips to the UK an annual event having just returned for the fourth year running when over the weekend he deservedly had the opportunity to play one of the most prestigious and iconic stages on the planet. After playing stadiums with Morgan Wallen and Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, Kent was able to add the Royal Albert Hall in London to his list of accolades after performing at last weekend’s Highways Festival where he spent some time catching up with Jamie before his incredible performance on stage.
Here we are again and this is a pretty nice little venue to be playing tonight.
“Yeah, you could say that. You know, it's one of the venues that, obviously, I think everybody wants to play but I don't know if it ever really crossed my mind that we would be in a position to do it. I mean, I remember seeing footage of Led Zeppelin here and CCR but you know, when you're growing up in Oklahoma, that's a pretty far cry from reality, even coming over here and much less coming to the UK to play music because people want to hear it. That seemed like a far cry from reality, but also being at a point where enough people want to hear your music that you get to play in a place like this. It's really, really special so, I'm excited and keep telling myself, no pressure.”
In terms of being somewhere that became possible, Kaitlin Butts who played last night and the Tigirlily Gold sisters said something similar where whilst Red Rocks, which we come on to shortly and places like Madison Square Garden are also iconic bucket list venues, here is so much further away that you almost don’t even view it as a star to reach for.
“Yeah, that’s a perfect way to put it. I mean you shoot for the stars for sure, but usually the stars are pretty limited to where you're from and being this far away from home then this place is so unique. I've never seen another place like it and the history, you can feel it. Like, you just set foot on that stage, you look up and you're like, some of the greatest of all time have been right here and it's a pretty cool, pretty cool moment. You feel like you're setting foot into a little moment of history outside of time.”
Is it kind of a weird mix of being overly excited and slightly more nervous at the same time playing places like this?
“Yes, it's a weird thing. I don't know what it is about places, you know, usually people are what make other people nervous, right? Stage fright isn't usually specific to the stage but in a few places, it is. I remember when we played Red Rocks for the first time, just the butterflies were ten times what they normally are. The same with the first time I set foot on the Grand Opry at The Ryman, when I did my debut the Opry house was kind of under renovation so we had to do it at the Ryman, which is where the original Opry was. Same thing, it's like, man, why am I so nervous? This is just another day in the office, but it's not and yeah, I feel the same way about this place. It's just another day doing work that we are used to doing, but the stage feels a bit bigger.”
Here we are again and this is a pretty nice little venue to be playing tonight.
“Yeah, you could say that. You know, it's one of the venues that, obviously, I think everybody wants to play but I don't know if it ever really crossed my mind that we would be in a position to do it. I mean, I remember seeing footage of Led Zeppelin here and CCR but you know, when you're growing up in Oklahoma, that's a pretty far cry from reality, even coming over here and much less coming to the UK to play music because people want to hear it. That seemed like a far cry from reality, but also being at a point where enough people want to hear your music that you get to play in a place like this. It's really, really special so, I'm excited and keep telling myself, no pressure.”
In terms of being somewhere that became possible, Kaitlin Butts who played last night and the Tigirlily Gold sisters said something similar where whilst Red Rocks, which we come on to shortly and places like Madison Square Garden are also iconic bucket list venues, here is so much further away that you almost don’t even view it as a star to reach for.
“Yeah, that’s a perfect way to put it. I mean you shoot for the stars for sure, but usually the stars are pretty limited to where you're from and being this far away from home then this place is so unique. I've never seen another place like it and the history, you can feel it. Like, you just set foot on that stage, you look up and you're like, some of the greatest of all time have been right here and it's a pretty cool, pretty cool moment. You feel like you're setting foot into a little moment of history outside of time.”
Is it kind of a weird mix of being overly excited and slightly more nervous at the same time playing places like this?
“Yes, it's a weird thing. I don't know what it is about places, you know, usually people are what make other people nervous, right? Stage fright isn't usually specific to the stage but in a few places, it is. I remember when we played Red Rocks for the first time, just the butterflies were ten times what they normally are. The same with the first time I set foot on the Grand Opry at The Ryman, when I did my debut the Opry house was kind of under renovation so we had to do it at the Ryman, which is where the original Opry was. Same thing, it's like, man, why am I so nervous? This is just another day in the office, but it's not and yeah, I feel the same way about this place. It's just another day doing work that we are used to doing, but the stage feels a bit bigger.”
Talking about Red Rocks, you’re going back there again with Eric Church who actually headlined this same festival here, last year. That’s gotta be another one that you’re really looking forward to as well.
“Man, that's a show that I've been trying to manifest for a long time. You know, everybody in the music industry, it’s a pretty small circle and I feel like I've had the ability to maybe ask for that to happen but, Eric Church, that “Chief” record was so inspiring to me and it's probably a top five most influential record in what I and what I currently do with my music. I was like, man, if I ever get to play a show with the Chief, I want to earn it, I want him to want us and I don't want to be begging for the slot. It took some years, and I remember we were in Australia when I got a phone call from my manager, and he said, if you could open any venue in any place for any artist, what would it be? I was like, oh, easy, Red Rocks for Eric Church, then he goes, well, you better hold on because that offer just came through and I went, no way! So, yeah, to say I'm looking forward to it is an understatement. It's gonna go down in my mind as one of those performances that you'll look back on when you've hung it up and you'll go, man, I can't believe I got to do that.”
This is the fourth year running which is awesome to be able to say but this is a shorter run as well, do quick trips like this make planning and the grownup element of being away from family as lot easier?
“Yes, they make life maybe specifically for my family easier. It's a little bit tougher on us because right when you get settled in with time change, you're moving and time's changing again but I think that I've really enjoyed the longer runs here because you do get to see more. Actually, this time, instead of doing a bus, we all voted in the band and crew to do vans because we wanted to see more, you know, we wanted to be able to see something beautiful on the side of the road and pull over and take a second to be able to experience a little more. We'd never been to Germany or the Netherlands before so getting to kind of drive ourselves around there was special.”
I didn't realise you hadn't been to over there before, like when I saw where you were playing, I always say to people, Cologne and Amsterdam are easily two of my favourite cities. That huge cathedral can be seen for miles across Germany and it’s got a really good drinking culture.
“Yeah, we saw that firsthand.”
Then Amsterdam's obviously the ultimate city of sin that you have to visit but like you say, it's quite nice, to see more than the inside of a tour bus and backstage at venues.
“We've been fortunate enough this go around specifically to venture out into every place that we stopped, see a little bit of the everyday life there and yeah, it was probably four o'clock in the afternoon and we saw some Germans stumbling around the cathedral.”
Well, to be fair I saw some people stumbling around outside here at four o’clock this afternoon, but that's typical for us Brits as well. Coming back to tonight, what have you got for us?
“It’s Full band and we've been releasing some new music, so you'll hear some of those new songs off this record that I've been working on. We're actually starting the whole set off with something unreleased, which should be fun, it’s something high energy and uh just one of my favourite songs called “Motorbike”. That’s one of my favourite pastimes, when music became a full-time job, for most of us, we’ve got to find another hobby you know? So, motorcycles became my hobby and this song is kind of a coming of age song, but it's also just a feel good, fun song about riding.”
That's interesting because Carly (Pearce) is also opening her set with an unreleased song as well so staying with the theme of new music, it sounds like we may have something bigger in the works so what sort of phase are we at with it? Is it a case of you're still writing? Are you still recording? Have you done all that shit and you’re just waiting for people to press the buttons and tell you when to go? Where are we?
“Good question. The record is all but done, there is one final cherry on top that we're doing right now. Which, not to spoil the surprise about the cherry on top but my part of the record is done. We have someone else coming in to put their finishing touch on a song that I think is gonna be a big song either way but then to add this friend to the record, I think is really going to take it to the next level. So I'll fly back on Monday then head from Dallas over to Nashville and we'll cut the vocals on that, then the record will be done.”
“Man, that's a show that I've been trying to manifest for a long time. You know, everybody in the music industry, it’s a pretty small circle and I feel like I've had the ability to maybe ask for that to happen but, Eric Church, that “Chief” record was so inspiring to me and it's probably a top five most influential record in what I and what I currently do with my music. I was like, man, if I ever get to play a show with the Chief, I want to earn it, I want him to want us and I don't want to be begging for the slot. It took some years, and I remember we were in Australia when I got a phone call from my manager, and he said, if you could open any venue in any place for any artist, what would it be? I was like, oh, easy, Red Rocks for Eric Church, then he goes, well, you better hold on because that offer just came through and I went, no way! So, yeah, to say I'm looking forward to it is an understatement. It's gonna go down in my mind as one of those performances that you'll look back on when you've hung it up and you'll go, man, I can't believe I got to do that.”
This is the fourth year running which is awesome to be able to say but this is a shorter run as well, do quick trips like this make planning and the grownup element of being away from family as lot easier?
“Yes, they make life maybe specifically for my family easier. It's a little bit tougher on us because right when you get settled in with time change, you're moving and time's changing again but I think that I've really enjoyed the longer runs here because you do get to see more. Actually, this time, instead of doing a bus, we all voted in the band and crew to do vans because we wanted to see more, you know, we wanted to be able to see something beautiful on the side of the road and pull over and take a second to be able to experience a little more. We'd never been to Germany or the Netherlands before so getting to kind of drive ourselves around there was special.”
I didn't realise you hadn't been to over there before, like when I saw where you were playing, I always say to people, Cologne and Amsterdam are easily two of my favourite cities. That huge cathedral can be seen for miles across Germany and it’s got a really good drinking culture.
“Yeah, we saw that firsthand.”
Then Amsterdam's obviously the ultimate city of sin that you have to visit but like you say, it's quite nice, to see more than the inside of a tour bus and backstage at venues.
“We've been fortunate enough this go around specifically to venture out into every place that we stopped, see a little bit of the everyday life there and yeah, it was probably four o'clock in the afternoon and we saw some Germans stumbling around the cathedral.”
Well, to be fair I saw some people stumbling around outside here at four o’clock this afternoon, but that's typical for us Brits as well. Coming back to tonight, what have you got for us?
“It’s Full band and we've been releasing some new music, so you'll hear some of those new songs off this record that I've been working on. We're actually starting the whole set off with something unreleased, which should be fun, it’s something high energy and uh just one of my favourite songs called “Motorbike”. That’s one of my favourite pastimes, when music became a full-time job, for most of us, we’ve got to find another hobby you know? So, motorcycles became my hobby and this song is kind of a coming of age song, but it's also just a feel good, fun song about riding.”
That's interesting because Carly (Pearce) is also opening her set with an unreleased song as well so staying with the theme of new music, it sounds like we may have something bigger in the works so what sort of phase are we at with it? Is it a case of you're still writing? Are you still recording? Have you done all that shit and you’re just waiting for people to press the buttons and tell you when to go? Where are we?
“Good question. The record is all but done, there is one final cherry on top that we're doing right now. Which, not to spoil the surprise about the cherry on top but my part of the record is done. We have someone else coming in to put their finishing touch on a song that I think is gonna be a big song either way but then to add this friend to the record, I think is really going to take it to the next level. So I'll fly back on Monday then head from Dallas over to Nashville and we'll cut the vocals on that, then the record will be done.”
We’ve had a couple of songs that have already come out since your last project and as you’ve hinted at a collaboration to finish the new one off, you put one out pretty recently with Koe Wetzel, how did that come about and what was it about him that you felt was the right fit for it?
“Yeah, so Koe and I both live in Texas and I think there’s like the misconception that every artist is out of Nashville, right? But there's a few of us, you know, there's Cody Johnson, Parker, Koe, myself, Treaty Oak and Turnpike so there’s some of us still out in Oklahoma and Texas. I wrote that song and immediately after I wrote the second verse, I was like, man, this sounds like Koe, so I called him up and we thought this would be a cool way to just remind people that there's a whole subgenre of country music that's coming out of a different place. We just locked arms on it and actually, we didn't even tell our label, our management or anybody about this song because we didn't want anybody to say no. So, we booked the studio out in Cisco, Texas and we drove out there, hired some videographers, just did the thing we turned it in and it ended up being our fastest climbing radio hit that we've ever had and it’s still climbing. It was a cool way to do a song with a friend and with the way that that kind of came about, obviously, we both live in the state of Texas, but our music has started to be booked on the same festivals and a lot of people want to see us with Koe. So, it was this perfect synergy of where we had played a few festivals together, we had gotten closer, hung out more and I asked him to do this song then he said yes. We went rogue and did it ourselves, which was also a team bonding moment of just like, we're gonna do what we want to do. After that on the heels of it and seeing how successful that song was, we were like, man, we should we should go and tour together, so later this year we'll be on the road together and it'll be really fun.”
After that “Wannabe” is the most recent one you’ve put out, which a diehard Spice Girls fan, I was disappointed that this wasn't a cover.
“Ha-ha, I figured there’d be a few people who were very disappointed I wasn’t going down that road.”
You could totally pull off the Zig-a-zig-ah thing but anyway, what’s the deal behind this one and why did you decide it was the right time to put that out?
“I wrote that song almost two years ago and it's been one burning a hole in my pocket. I knew it was gonna be a special song, our fans have really resonated with it and I just think that it's really important when you're putting together a record, to have some diversity. I think a lot of people hear us and they think immediately it’s the country rock and roll thing. Growing up in Oklahoma, I grew up playing Western Swing music, I grew up playing acoustic stuff that is what I call hat down low, campfire, cowboy songs and I haven't really had one of those in my career. This one felt unique, I think that it said the things that I've felt for a long time and wanted to say where a big theme in my life is that if success is gonna cost me the people that I love or success is going to make me not recognise myself in the mirror, then that's overrated. I'd rather just be me, live the life that I love, with the woman that I love, and this song just simply in two minutes kind of shows you how my mind works really well. It just felt like a really obvious song to put out as a single to let people continue to get to know me, the real me.”
Corey Kent - Wannabe (Music Video)
Lastly, we’ll end on the topic we always talk about but for once, it’s quite a positive time to be Cowboys fans after we picked up a stud in the draft which is a nice change to us having the well, maybe next year conversation EVERY year so it’s a cool time to be looking ahead.
“It is and I remember when we let go of Micah Parsons, I was like, it's over, we're back to a complete rebuild but I didn’t expect some of the pieces that fell into place so I’m seeing optimism. I saw somebody the other day, I can't remember who, but he put them in the top top and I was shocked because usually nobody gives them any respect. Even when they do look like they're going to be something, it's just the thirty year drought is always staring you down. So who knows, man? I got high hopes for both of my cowboys, you know, I'm an Oklahoma State fan, too and it can't get any worse than it was last year, so it's all looking up right now.”
Well, Auburn are my adopted college team and my soccer team are in danger of being relegated from the Premier League so it's nice to have one of my teams at least offer me some hope. Anyway dude, smash it out there tonight, as you always do. Appreciate you taking the time to hang, keep coming back to see us and one of these times we’ll be celebrating a Super Bowl win.
“Come on, manifest! Thanks man.”
The new single “Wannabe” from Corey Kent is out now and available HERE. You can find details of all of Corey’s upcoming US dates on his WEBSITE and you can keep up to date with everything that he is up to on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK X and FACEBOOK.
“Yeah, so Koe and I both live in Texas and I think there’s like the misconception that every artist is out of Nashville, right? But there's a few of us, you know, there's Cody Johnson, Parker, Koe, myself, Treaty Oak and Turnpike so there’s some of us still out in Oklahoma and Texas. I wrote that song and immediately after I wrote the second verse, I was like, man, this sounds like Koe, so I called him up and we thought this would be a cool way to just remind people that there's a whole subgenre of country music that's coming out of a different place. We just locked arms on it and actually, we didn't even tell our label, our management or anybody about this song because we didn't want anybody to say no. So, we booked the studio out in Cisco, Texas and we drove out there, hired some videographers, just did the thing we turned it in and it ended up being our fastest climbing radio hit that we've ever had and it’s still climbing. It was a cool way to do a song with a friend and with the way that that kind of came about, obviously, we both live in the state of Texas, but our music has started to be booked on the same festivals and a lot of people want to see us with Koe. So, it was this perfect synergy of where we had played a few festivals together, we had gotten closer, hung out more and I asked him to do this song then he said yes. We went rogue and did it ourselves, which was also a team bonding moment of just like, we're gonna do what we want to do. After that on the heels of it and seeing how successful that song was, we were like, man, we should we should go and tour together, so later this year we'll be on the road together and it'll be really fun.”
After that “Wannabe” is the most recent one you’ve put out, which a diehard Spice Girls fan, I was disappointed that this wasn't a cover.
“Ha-ha, I figured there’d be a few people who were very disappointed I wasn’t going down that road.”
You could totally pull off the Zig-a-zig-ah thing but anyway, what’s the deal behind this one and why did you decide it was the right time to put that out?
“I wrote that song almost two years ago and it's been one burning a hole in my pocket. I knew it was gonna be a special song, our fans have really resonated with it and I just think that it's really important when you're putting together a record, to have some diversity. I think a lot of people hear us and they think immediately it’s the country rock and roll thing. Growing up in Oklahoma, I grew up playing Western Swing music, I grew up playing acoustic stuff that is what I call hat down low, campfire, cowboy songs and I haven't really had one of those in my career. This one felt unique, I think that it said the things that I've felt for a long time and wanted to say where a big theme in my life is that if success is gonna cost me the people that I love or success is going to make me not recognise myself in the mirror, then that's overrated. I'd rather just be me, live the life that I love, with the woman that I love, and this song just simply in two minutes kind of shows you how my mind works really well. It just felt like a really obvious song to put out as a single to let people continue to get to know me, the real me.”
Corey Kent - Wannabe (Music Video)
Lastly, we’ll end on the topic we always talk about but for once, it’s quite a positive time to be Cowboys fans after we picked up a stud in the draft which is a nice change to us having the well, maybe next year conversation EVERY year so it’s a cool time to be looking ahead.
“It is and I remember when we let go of Micah Parsons, I was like, it's over, we're back to a complete rebuild but I didn’t expect some of the pieces that fell into place so I’m seeing optimism. I saw somebody the other day, I can't remember who, but he put them in the top top and I was shocked because usually nobody gives them any respect. Even when they do look like they're going to be something, it's just the thirty year drought is always staring you down. So who knows, man? I got high hopes for both of my cowboys, you know, I'm an Oklahoma State fan, too and it can't get any worse than it was last year, so it's all looking up right now.”
Well, Auburn are my adopted college team and my soccer team are in danger of being relegated from the Premier League so it's nice to have one of my teams at least offer me some hope. Anyway dude, smash it out there tonight, as you always do. Appreciate you taking the time to hang, keep coming back to see us and one of these times we’ll be celebrating a Super Bowl win.
“Come on, manifest! Thanks man.”
The new single “Wannabe” from Corey Kent is out now and available HERE. You can find details of all of Corey’s upcoming US dates on his WEBSITE and you can keep up to date with everything that he is up to on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK X and FACEBOOK.