Jon Pardi attended the CMA Awards this year in style – in a red Bentley, which left him rather speechless. “We were just like dumbfounded,” Jon says. “We were walking around the car, looking inside of it, and we were like, ‘Are you sure this is ours all night? This is ours all night, so I can put my stuff in here?’ And he was like, ‘Yes, it’s yours all night.’ So, it was my ride home, it was everything.”
The new artist, whose debut single “Missin’ You Crazy” is heading up the country charts, wasn’t nominated and didn’t present, so he wasn’t credentialed to walk the red carpet at last week’s awards. However, he ended up “accidentally crashing” the red carpet. “[Our driver] pulls into the red carpet entrance where all the vehicles are going, and of course, this kid comes up to us and starts flipping through his pages after the driver said my name,” recalls Jon. “After [the kid] gets done looking through the pages, he goes, ‘Naw, he’s not on the list, but I saw him at the [Capitol] Street Party, and he was awesome. You guys are totally cool. Come back here.’ That was the coolest part because the Street Party got us on the red carpet. We pull up, and the Marines open the door and we got out, and maybe 5 or 7 girls said my name, and they asked for my autograph. Then I was like, ‘We gotta go. I’m not supposed to be here.’”
As you might recall, he took to the stage prior to Luke Bryan who headlined the Capitol Street Party in Nashville last month, performing for 25,000 people.
Jon stood on the CMA red carpet so photographers could snap his picture, but bypassed all of the interviews, because he felt he would get in major trouble. He and his road manager walked to the end of the red carpet and try to slip into Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena via the artist entrance, but were turned away since they weren’t “on the list,” and they had to go back around to an alternate entrance. “Our 10 seconds on the red carpet was extremely over after we got in an elevator going upstairs like, ‘Where do we go now?’,” Jon laughs.
The California native won’t have to worry about “getting in trouble” for walking the red carpet next year; he’ll be there legitimately.
AUDIO: Jon Pardi describes his ride at this year’s CMA Awards.
Jon Pardi (CMA ride) OC: …and the car. :33
“I was riding with my tour manager, and he gets off the phone and he was like, ‘I talked to the driver, and I may not have heard correctly, but I think he said a red Bentley. And we were all like, ‘No, he probably said ‘Red Mercedes’ or like a Lincoln Towncar.’ We get there, and it’s a freaking red Bentley. We were just like dumbfounded. We were walking around the car, looking inside of it. And we were like, ‘Are you sure this is ours all night? This is ours all night, so I can put my stuff in here?’ And he was like, ‘Yes, it’s yours all night.’ So, it was my ride home, it was everything. It was my driver and the car.”
AUDIO: Jon Pardi talks about crashing the red carpet at this year’s CMA Awards.
Jon Pardi (crashing CMA Red Carpet) OC: …the red carpet. 1:03
“We’re cruising around. We’re sitting in traffic in this freaking Bentley. So, the driver starts asking questions, and he’s like, ‘Are you guys walking the red carpet? Where do you go?’ And one of the key questions he asked me and [road manager] J.R., ‘Where do you park this?’ We were like, ‘Well, you can’t park it in a downtown parking garage.’ So, he’s like, ‘Well, I know where there’s an artist drop-off.’ He pulls into the red carpet entrance where all the vehicles are going, and of course, this kid comes up to us and starts flipping through his pages after the driver said my name. He said, “I’ve got this guy, Jon Pardi.’ So, after [the kid] gets done looking through the pages, he goes, ‘Naw, he’s not on the list, but I saw him at the [Capitol] Street Party, and he was awesome. You guys are totally cool. Come back here.’ So, we pull up, and that was the coolest part because the Street Party got us on the red carpet. So, we pull up, and the Marines open the door and we got out, and maybe 5 or 7 girls said my name and they asked for my autograph. Then I was like, ‘We gotta go. I’m not supposed to be here.’ And so, I ran up to the camera and said, ‘We just crashed the red carpet!’”
AUDIO: Jon Pardi continues his story about crashing the red carpet at this year’s CMA Awards.
Jon Pardi (crashing CMA Red Carpet) 2 OC: …the red carpet. :53
“I took pictures like very awkwardly, like I didn’t know like what I was supposed to do, like I had no publicist. I just had J.R., and he didn’t know what he was doing. We were just taking pictures. [laughs] It was crazy. People were just taking pictures, and it was crazy. People were like, ‘snap, snap, snap, Jon, snap, snap.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know what we’re doing! This is our first, we’re not supposed to be [here], it’s cool. We had a Bentley.’ We just kept going. I just went past all of the interviews. Sorry, I didn’t want to get into even more trouble. And then we get to the end of where you’re like supposed to go if you’re a regular red carpet [artist], then we get to another list, and they’re like, ‘You’re not on the list. You guys [have] got to go back out and around to the other artists’ entrance. Our 10 seconds on the red carpet was extremely over after we got in an elevator going upstairs like, ‘Where do we go now?’ At the end of it, we went in and got a beer and said, ‘That was fun. We just crashed the red carpet.’”
