Aaron Tippin

(Who are the folks you’re new album title is referring to in “People Like Us”?)

Aaron Tippin (AT)- Ain’t that a cool title and song or what? I’m really hyped out about the whole thing. That phrase is the underlying message throughout this new album. It’s a rally call to those people like us who are big country music fans.

I think with acts like Montgomery Gentry experiencing they’re success, we’re currently into what I’d call the twilight period of back to hank Williams JR. style of country. And that’s truly just plain OLE people like us. You know this whole thing with country music swings back and forth you know?

(It sure does.)
(AT)- I think it’s getting ready to swing again. This time with Thea singing on this album with me and her songs being on there, it just knocks me out man. I’m just so happy about that. The song “Kiss This”, she wrote that with me. ou know this is a big family album brother. This is a family album and I’m just so proud of that fact. My family is all throughout this whole thing and win lose or draw, I’ve got one of the “coolest” albums out there this summer because there’s so much family in it. I think the truth is, “People Like Us”, is cool. “Big Boy Toys” and “Twenty-Nine And Holding’, hey the songs have lyrics that are about people like us. It’s about the same OLE people who have always been country fans.

(Who are those folks?)
(AT)- How can I say it other then us Hillbillies! Man that’s who it’s really about. The folks who are out there puttin’ in those eight-hour days right now man. That’s what us is. That’s the us. People whose word still means something. It’s not something written on paper, then a smile and a handshake and then later on, a knife in your back. It’s real live people who have some integrity. It’s about real live people who, while they might not have all of the education, but they got the integrity, that’s the kind of folks I’m talking about. It has nothing to do with money either brother, it’s all about your own personal integrity. It’s about how much you really have.

(What about your wife’s songwriting?)

She’s been writing for five, maybe six years. She’s tried to get on nearly every album I’ve recorded, but she’s got to past the test. Her songs have to take the same beating that mine do. My record label approves everything so we both had to pass the test. And, I’ll tell you she has some songs on this record because she passed the test and I’ll tell you, it’s great. Hey, she’s (Thea)been in the music business as long as I have man. She is a graduate of Belomnt University and she is a music major and man, I’ll tell you, this (Thea’s getting several of her songs on Aaron’s new record) is justice. She’s put the time in and now she’s seeing the rewards. She told me the other day she was driving into town and her song came on the radio (“Kiss This”) and she turned the radio up loud and squealed with excitement. And man when she told me that story I remembered how that experience of hearing my song on the radio for the first time was. It’s great seeing her get what she’s worked hard for and what she deserved.

(What’s feedback has Aaron been getting lately about his career?)

(AT)-Hey man it ain’t no secret, OLE Aaron Tippin hasn’t drove one up the charts for a while now. That’s no secret man. I’ll tell you what though, our attitude is now that the hip-hop, pop-sounding country is going to continue to be, “IN”. And there’s nothing that’s going to change any of that. I see a pace for my music and country music is a pendulum. It’ll swing back in my direction, I know it will. I’m comfortable with my place in country music, it’ll swing back my way. I don’t worry about any of that man, as long as the fans will have me, I’ll try to continue to keep doing what I do. You know all it’ll take is one hit and a good record and I think things will turn around.

(Do you feel that there’s a re-definition, by both the country fans and the music industry,of what country music is about currently underway within the country music genre?)

(AT)-Yeah man. I’ve never been one to say that a country song, had to have a pedal steel or a fiddle. I’ve always said that it had to have a great story in the song. I don’t think I’ve ever trapped it into that. While I love the sound of a fiddle and a pedal steel, I’ve never limited it to that. I think it’s become a wider scale then what it was a few years ago, but hey man think about this, that’s the same way it happened ten years ago. And look at what that caused, it opened up country music. It opened everything up to a pop thing and then it went back to traditional and then, “Bam!”, it went back again. I think that country music is going to be OK. As long as some integrity is still there and there’s still some integrity there, so then country music is going be OK.