The Josh Kear Interview is featured on The Paul Leslie Hour.
Are you here? One of the things we like most about The Paul Leslie Hour is that we can uncover something that went out over the radio years ago and listen to it in the here… and now. People just like you listen to these interviews totally in the present. The present we’re in.
We’re going to give this interview with Grammy award-winning songwriter Josh Kear a spin. Back in 2007, three songs co-written by Kear entered the country charts: “That’s How They Do It in Dixie” by Hank Williams, Jr., “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood and “Bama Breeze” by Jimmy Buffett. (Josh wrote the Buffett track with Chris Tompkins and Mark Irwin)
The same year “Before He Cheats” won the Single of the Year Award at the Country Music Association Awards. A few months later, it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song. It’s one of the longest-charting hits in Billboard history.
Josh Kear did this interview with Paul Edward Leslie to talk about some of his famous songs and also about “Blue Pearl Paradise,” his somewhat underground album of original island songs. Josh is such a nice guy he sent us the demo of “Bama Breeze” to play and we’ll all listen to that together.
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Now let’s hear from our special guest Josh Kear. Whatdya say? It’s time we listened. Together.
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The Official Transcript
[2:04] It is with great pleasure that we welcome songwriter Josh Kear. Thanks for joining us, Josh.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.
Most stories start best from the beginning. So tell us about Gary Kear.
My dad is actually kind of the reason why I started playing guitar and singing in the first place. You know, I grew up with him playing and singing around the house.
A lot of my early musical influences came through him and his particular music choices, which were, of course, Elvis and Rick Nelson and a lot of Motown and that sort of stuff. And then as I got older, discovering the Eagles and Jimmy Buffett and those sort of things.
In general, he’s probably still the biggest and greatest influence on my life, just as an individual, him and my mom, but the sweetest guy I know.
Does he play music?
He still occasionally picks up a guitar, but not in a band or any of that sort of stuff.
Can you remember the first song you ever wrote?
I don’t know if I could remember the title of it. I know I wrote it when I was 13 years old, started writing songs in general, like most boys do, about a girl I had a crush on, and never figured out a way to stop.
[3:16] Which is probably the only reason why I kept doing it. It just became as much a habit as it was a hobby, and then, of course, a career.
If you could put it into words, what makes a good song a good song?
Whatever moves you, you know, and that’s whether that’s up.
[3:33] It makes you happy, makes you sad, makes you dance, makes you cry, and that’s such an individual decision. What you might think of a great song you might not enjoy at all, you know.
Luckily, it’s not all designed for everybody to love the exact same things, because otherwise it’d be pretty darn boring.
Did you always know that professionally you were going to be a songwriter?
No. My degree, my college degree is in history. I started out in college with a music business program and then realized that if I wasn’t gonna write songs, I really didn’t wanna work in the music business.
Switched over and got a history degree, which luckily I’ve never had to use.
I really wanted to be a songwriter. I mean, professional songwriter from by the time I was 16, I started reading books about it, trying to learn everything I could about how to make it a profession in my career choice. But at that stage of my life, didn’t 100% believe it was possible. It wasn’t until I guess 19 or 20 when I had some professors that really started showing some interest in what I was writing. One published one of my songs, one that started helping me get writing appointments on Music Row when I was 19. And then I started believing it was at least possible, although I was still seeing it way down the road.
When you look back at all the songs you’ve written in your career and your life in general, what are you most proud of?
[4:50] I have one song in particular that I really love. Started out called “Forever Valentine” and now it’s called “Forever 17,” and it’s going to be available on the Tim McGraw album that’s coming out this fall.
That’s the one song that over the past seven or eight years, I’ve probably played live almost every time I’ve ever played. It was the first song my wife ever heard me play when I was playing live.
I still love that one particular song. It probably means more to me than any of the others, although, who knows, I doubt it’s probably even my best song. I have no idea what you’d base that on.
Given that you’re a songwriter that also performs songs, if you could compare the two, what do you have a preference for, or do you have a preference between songwriting and performing music?
Yeah, that’s an easy one. If I have to choose between the two, it’s writing. As much as I enjoy performing, I don’t play out that often anymore. I used to have a band, and we’d go out and rock all night.
[5:54] That’s been years ago now. And as much fun as it was, it’s not even close. The actual act of sitting down and having an idea and coming up with something out of nothing, that creation process beats the heck out of the other for me any day of the week.
Although, there is something really rewarding about the immediate feedback of performing a song and getting the reaction you were hoping to get from a crowd. I understand why performers do what they do and why they are willing to go out and slog it out on the road and live that lifestyle, but yeah, hands down, easy choice for me to stick with the writing.
What is it you like about music?
A really hard, but easy question all at the same time.
It’s just such a long answer. I love how live it makes you feel at its best. There’s a documentary out, came out a couple of years ago. It’s called “Young at Heart.” [6:45] And it’s about this group of senior citizens who are performing rock music as like a little show choir. And the youngest member in the band is 70 years old, or in the performing group.
And watching this thing, you know, I dare you to watch and have it not bring a tear to your eye before it’s over. It’s everything that, everything that most of us want to come to music because it gives you a reason for living. It gives you, it makes you just appreciate the experience of being alive even more than you would, obviously, without it.
That’s really an odd answer to that question. I could talk about that for days and still probably not come up with an answer I’d be fully satisfied.
I think that’s a great answer, You’ve had your songs cut by some true legends. I’ve been kind of on a Hank Williams Jr. kick lately and he did one of your songs “That’s How They Do It In Dixie.”
[7:35] Yeah, that was a pretty neat moment for us. That song it was actually slated to be the second single following, I don’t know if you’re familiar with who Rodney Atkins is, before his, that single, “Going Through Hell” broke, they recorded our song, that same song, the exact same day they recorded Going Through Hell, and then Hank Jr. fell in love with it and they’re on the same label, and the label ended up giving it to Hank Jr. instead, and of course at the time we were all super excited about it going to Hank and still are, and still it’s really amazing to get to have a song recorded by a legend. Just to be a part of that legacy, you know, it’s an honor that, I’ll always be grateful for. But it was really weird because that other song went on to be a huge number one song of the year kind of song. We probably would have had to follow-up single had it not ended up with Hank Jr. So I guess we were kind of in a win-win situation [8:31] there. We got to meet him one time very, very briefly, just long enough for him to come up and say thanks for the song and we thanked him. It’s a very cool thing to have your name attached to anybody that’s that much of a legend.
Very cool. There’s another legend that cut one of your songs. Jimmy Buffett cut your song Bama Breeze, and you wrote that song with Chris Tompkins and Mark Irwin. I was hoping you could tell us how you met Chris Tompkins and Mark Irwin.
Well, I met them at completely separate times. Mark and I just met in a bar here in town through an old friend. The first two or three songs we wrote together, we really hit it off right away, but the first two or three songs we wrote together absolutely terrible. But we liked each other so much we just kept on writing and he and I have written now once or twice a week for I guess 11, 12 years. He’s one of my best friends in the world, actually they both are.
And then Chris and, I were suggested we should meet and write through an old friend, one of the fellows that actually helped me get my first publishing deal. And we sat together talking for our first writing appointment without even attempting to write while he sat there and played the music from Late for the Sky by Jackson Browne. We just sat and talked. And he wasn’t even paying attention to what he was doing, he was just playing it on piano while we talked. And I’m a massive Jackson Browne fan and we’ve been fast friends and close co-writers ever since.
They’re great guys and amazingly talented.
Well, tell us about that song. How did you guys get inspired to write Bama Breeze?
[10:01] Strangely enough Chris who is easily talented enough on both piano and guitar to be a studio musician had he not wanted to be a songwriter.
And he was sitting there noodling one day and just kind of started singing that. [10:18] And we had no idea what the hook was going to be when we started somewhat of like a bar name or something and started singing something else ,but he had the other part the started coming up with the “you can drink a beer down there argue laugh and cheer down there,” and then we all started kind of jumping in and come up lines and we didn’t have the name of the bar several days after that writing appointment where we sort of gained a little ground, but didn’t make a lot of progress. I get this call from Chris saying hey man “Bama Breeze” fits in there great. Yeah well it sounds good. And Bama Breeze was actually a bar Chris used to play in, in Alabama when he was a kid, when he was a teenager playing in bar bands. He shouldn’t have even been able to get into the Bama Breeze, but he was already there playing keyboards in bands with guys a lot older than him.
So I think that bar actually ended up burning down or something years and years later so we of course all had our own personal experiences about different bars we love to hang out near and places we love to hang and so part of what’s in there, really slightly fictionalized versions of real things part of it’s just made up stuff because it sounded good. The song’s been a lot of fun and probably the most fun I’ve ever had as a songwriter. [11:31] was getting to drive home when we found out that Jimmy Buffett had cut it.
My wife and I drove home, decorated my parents’ kitchen as if it was a tropical-themed thing.
I threw in a CD of Jimmy Buffett songs and every fifth song on it was the demo for Bama Breeze.
It wasn’t until it came up the second time that my mom looked across the table and she goes, “that’s weird.” She goes: “that’s the only song on here that’s not a Jimmy Buffett song.”
I was able to look at both of them and go, “But actually, it is now,” and it was really, really cool.
I mean, especially considering it was my dad’s musical hero. It was a really fun night.
Yeah, I’m grateful for that one.
It wasn’t inspired in part by the Flora-Bama bar?
You know what, I’ve never been to the Flora-Bama. I think Chris has, because of course, he grew up in Alabama and had been there many times. I know that when Jimmy heard the song, that was the first place that he pictured. That was kind of the idea of the song to start with.
[12:32] You know, it was to create this feeling of, this is like the all-American bar that we’re talking about.
It’s wherever you picture it. Wherever it is that you consider your watering hole and your place to go hang out with your friends and where all your memories are. It was supposed to be the amalgam of all those different things so that anybody hearing it would kind of make it their own. And I know that when Jimmy heard it, he was looking for something to make a tribute to all of the bars and things that got wiped out along the coast, we had a really rough couple of years there. I know that that’s what came into his head, and it could have been. It could have been about anything. It could have been about any bar anywhere.
So it wasn’t what we originally pictured, and yet at the same time, it was kind of what we had in mind for the purpose of the song was so that it would apply wherever you wanted it to.
So it always made perfect sense to me that if he wanted to use that as the tribute that particular bar, it would make perfect sense.
This song was written by our special guest Josh Kear along with Chris Tompkins and Mark Irwin. We’re going to play the song as it was presented to Jimmy Buffett who recorded it on the album “Take the Weather With You.” Here is Josh Kear, with “Bama Breeze.”
[13:46] Music begins.
[17:09] There’s an album that you recorded called “Blue Pearl Paradise” that kind of has the Jimmy Buffett theme to it, I guess, or the island theme rather.
Yeah, sure. That’s exactly what it was intended for.
Myself and a couple of other friends, Ed Hill and David Frazier, who I’ve also written with at least once a week for over ten years now, we got it in our heads one summer, we were going to start writing these island songs, and then we just ended up writing more and more of them, and I started saying to them, hey, this would make a really great Christmas present for my dad if we recorded all these. We ended up writing enough songs, I think there’s 12 songs on there, something like that. We recorded them all in one full day in the studio.
[17:54] We liked it so much that when we decided we were going to pitch it around Music Row, we actually printed up jackets and sleeves and everything. I don’t remember exactly how I ended up in contact with the heads of some of the Parrot Head clubs, but a couple of them started showing some interest, so I started contacting more of them and sending them out.
We had it in our heads for a little while and maybe we try to sell a bunch of them and promote it.
It probably had a lot of legs and a lot of life left in it, and I just got so distracted by all the other music I was still continuing to make, that we never really chased the potential that the album itself probably could have had. But I’ve always been proud of it, and it did make a great Christmas present. A lot of people love the music.
Absolutely. That song, the title cut, “Blue Pearl Paradise,” that is a really fabulous song.
Thank you. Same kind of conversations we’ve all probably had in bars, you know, late, late at night when you might have had a little too much to drink and you start talking about, you, know, just how big this universe is.
It’s a very pretty, sweet cut. I like that one a lot.
A lot of those songs, I could almost hear Kenny Chesney recording them. I’m sure I’m not the first person to say that.
Yeah, actually, the one song of mine, as far as the Island stuff [19:04] that Kenny’s come close to recording was “Bama Breeze.” I know that at one point, he had actually been looking at that, even before Jimmy recorded it, for whatever reason. You know, at the time, it’s not something he chose to put on a record, and then it ended up on that record.
I’m assuming that my publisher has pitched the songs from “Blue Pearl Paradise” to either Kenny or at least Kenny’s producer, and most of the songs Kenny seems to record for that type of stuff, for the island stuff, is stuff he writes. He doesn’t seem to be one that’s choosing outside material. He seems to be inspired enough by his time in the Caribbean, in Florida, to write his own songs for those things. And in that case, obviously you can’t get upset with any performer artist for wanting to write their own material if it’s something that they’re really moved about. So yeah, I would think those songs would work for him, But at the same time, I think he’s going to write his own material for that. Yeah, great.
That’s good.
What do you hope to accomplish with your songs other than a living?
[20:04] Yeah, i’ve been putting my uh four week old daughter through college. I want to leave something behind you know something i’m proud of some body of work that when I look back I will have been able to say that, I created the best music I could possibly create and I entertained myself and hopefully a lot of other people along the way.
Very well put. Before we go, this broadcast goes out all over the world. So what would you like to say to all the people that are listening in?
[20:31] Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for giving any of my music any time within your life. You know we all have a finite time we’re here. It’s a measure of respect when somebody actually gives time to your music and it’s something that every writer and performer should be grateful for. So thanks for tuning in tonight and giving any of my songs a chance.
Ladies and gentlemen Josh Kear. Mr. Kear, thanks so much for the interview. I appreciate it. Absolutely, thanks for having me. I’m going to do it again sometime.
Alright, later.
Okay. Bye.