Dierks Bentley (CMT—Drunk captain) OC: …some moves, yeah. :26
“Captain Holden Mike Johnson – I don’t know where he is right now. Last I’d heard, he’d been demoted, and he’s flying a little Cessna smiling somewhere where there’s no FAA regulations after his CMT performance debut. I don’t know. I think he’ll still come around every now and then. He’s a strong man with a strong look, and I don’t know. Management’s not too excited about him, but we’ll see. [laughs] He took my wife home from the CMT Awards, so he’s got some moves, yeah.”

Darius Rucker (CMT performances) OC: …play with. :11
“It’s really just one of those things where I’m really happy to be nominated, because I didn’t expect that all. I’m looking forward to, what I always look forward to is the performances, because you never get to see anybody because we’re always on the road and you only see the guys you play with.”

Sam Hunt (Leave the Night On video) OC: …making the video. :38
“‘Leave the Night On’ was my first official music video, although I have a bit of a passion for the video world because my manager, Brad, comes from the videographer world. That’s how our relationship started was shooting this little video for another song about six months before that. But I learned from making a few of these low-budget videos early on that the best way to go about doing it is just try to keep it honest and real and all of the people in the ‘Leave the Night On’ video was friends of ours. We didn’t really want to hire actors and actresses to come in. It’s just hard to stage a good time. You kinda have to just let it naturally happen. So, that was a good thing about that video is that it turned into a just a fun day hanging out with all of our buddies, and we had a really good time making the video.”

Lady A (Bartender video) OC: …was perfect. :34
“I think there’s no surprise why ‘Bartender’ is in video of the year — Kate Upton. You’ve got all these guys sitting there voting, and the first thing that pops in their mind is Kate Upton. And so, that was all part of the plan, so our evil plan worked. But, that was definitely one of the most fun videos to shoot, having Kate Upton and Tony Hale. He was hilarious. I mean, he took the video to a whole ‘nother level. So, we’re just really proud of that video. Shane Drake did a great job, and just kind of really actually took this basic concept and really brought it to life. I thought it was perfect.”

LBT (Girl Crush) 3 OC: …that song? :33
KAREN: “Kimberly and I are so lucky that we were writing with them, and they had just written that song. And they said, (JIMI: “…like the day before.”) Liz said, ‘Can we play you guys something?” PHILLIP: “You’ll never cut it.” KAREN: “She said, ‘You’ll never cut it, but I just want to play it for you.” We said, ‘Yeah, yeah, play it.’ We had just set down, cups of coffee in the morning, we were hanging out, and they played ‘Girl Crush.’” KIMBERLY: “We were slayed.” KAREN: “We could not say, ‘Can we please have that’ quick enough. Like as soon as it was over, we were like, ‘We want that song! We want it right now!’ Why would we not cut that song?”

Sam Hunt (House Party) OC: …a lot of fun. :45
“‘House Party’ I wrote with Jerry Flowers and Zach Crowell. I came in one day to write with Zach – Zach is one of the producers on my record – and Jerry was already playing this groove, this cool groove. And I had this little idea, the line, ‘If you’re gonna be a homebody/we’re gonna have a house party.’ We didn’t want to write a party song. We wanted to try to write it from a different angle, and that’s when the girl came into play, and the homebody thing, I guess, came in after that. I can’t remember, but we tied it in…with a song called ‘House Party,’ you’d expect it to be more about a big party, not as much about a relationship, so we tried to put a little bit of a unique twist on it. It’s another one of my favorite songs to play live. It’s a lot of fun.”

Kip Moore (laying off pranks on Dierks) OC: …thing go. :13
“I’m laying off of [Dierks]. I got a feeling that he’s got it coming for me, so I need to kind of chill out. But if he does, if he slips up and gets me, I’m just gonna one-up him, so the best thing he can do is just let the whole thing go.”

Canaan Smith (pranks) OC: …kind of stuff. 1:08
“I can’t give away my secrets. I have ideas, ideas churning in my head. But as an example of a recent prank, I got my band on April Fool’s Day. I told them I wanted to start this tradition right before we would go on stage, let’s eat a lucky Oreo. That was my idea. Why an Oreo? You’ll see why. But they didn’t know why. I said, ‘Let’s eat a lucky Oreo.’ I even primed it earlier in the day to make them think there was nothing wrong with these Oreos. I bought the Oreos earlier in the day. I’m like, ‘Hey! Here’s the idea guys. Let’s eat Oreos tonight.’ We’re all just eating out of this box of Oreos. But then later on, I snuck out to the bus, and I replaced all the cream in the Oreos with toothpaste, with minty white toothpaste, and strategically replaced them perfectly back in the package, so that they would just have no clue what was about to hit them. Right before we went onstage, I said something about, ‘Alright this is our first night, new tradition, love you boys, let’s do this! Here’s your Oreo.’ Boom. Pop it. Right away, one of ‘em called me an [beep] hole and went and threw up in the trash can. They’re all just like pissed, and now they’re threatening to get me back. But, yeah, I love that kind of stuff.”

Darius Rucker (CMA Music Fest) OC: …awesome. :48
“Music Fest is like nothing else. I say all the time that country music is the only genre that could have something like that. It’s truly amazing, when I come that weekend, people are everywhere and they want to be your best friend. It’s always cool and I love coming here. The thing that always gets me is the show. The fact that you can get that many superstars at one show all playing for free, for the same goal, to entertain those people that are in that stadium that come here for the whole week from all over the world. They come here for one week to see country music, and it’s amazing that those artists say on Friday and Saturday night, this is country music come on out. That’s awesome.”

Dierks (fans) OC: …commitment. [laughs] :22

“I know a lot of the early fans by name, because we played a lot of shows at a lot of small venues where we’d be around a lot after the shows. I’m not gonna say her name ‘cause I don’t know if she’d want me to or not, but she has like a dog print of Jake, my dog’s Jake, but she has this dog print on her shoulder with my name in the middle of the tattoo. So, tattoos are always, that’s a big deal when somebody gets your name tattooed on part of their body or something. It’s kind of a scary thing, because it’s kind of a lifelong commitment. [laughs]”

Easton Corbin (fans) OC: …being here. :24
“My fans mean a great deal to me, especially the fans that come out to the shows and the ones that make it to every show around their home or in that vicinity. And I even have people come here that I know every time, in this meet-and-greet lines or maybe at that fence over there by the fence where you’re getting off the red carpet, I try to always make it a point to recognize those fans, and just let them know how much that I care and I appreciate them being here.”

Eric Church (CMA Music Fest) OC: …to see. :32

“Well, I think it’s what makes country music unique. Find me another format that happens in, it’s just not something that happens. I think it’s because country music is really the one format that the fans…the music is really about them. And we’re them; we’re not different than them. You got a lot of rock stars and a lot of the other guys where they’re their own person, they’re their own agenda…they’re not like the people that are listening to them. It’s different in country, we are. We come from there, we are that. I think it’s just a great thing for them to be able to come to our town and to get just this barrage of music.”

Eric Paslay (1^st autograph) OC: …first autograph. :42
“The first autograph that I ever got was in Branson, Missouri, and it was Shoji Tabuchi, and he’s a great fiddle player, and I always remember that, you know if you go to Branson, you know who he is. But I was a 9, 10 year old kid, and I always remember that. Every time I meet a kid, I don’t know if it’s their first concert. It could be their 100-thousandth, but whenever I sign an autograph for a kid, I really make sure it’s special and memorable, and with anybody, but especially with kids. I still have that Shoji Tabuchi autograph, you know? Because it meant that much to me. I didn’t know who he was until we saw him, but he tore the place down playing the “Orange Blossom Special.”

Josh Turner (weirdest thing he’s been asked to sign) OC: …Sharpie, though. :10
“A toothpick, an unused toothpick, let me throw that out there – an unused toothpick. It was quite challenging, actually, and it didn’t look anything like my autograph. It took a really small Sharpie, though.”

Keith Urban (CMA Music Fest) OC: …always love it. :25
“I love it! It’s like summer camp. I mean, it is! It’s just a chance to obviously see a lot of people I don’t normally see, I don’t know. It’s just palpable. Since Fan Fair, it’s just been that sort of week-plus of energy, the whole town just explodes, and what it is we love about this genre and the community aspect of it. I always love it.”

Lady Antebellum (Music Fest) 1 OC: …over the world. :14

“The electricity in LP Field every year for that, you can’t really beat it. It’s so much fun to be there, and to have a stadium full of the most die-hard country fans you could ever imagine, from all over the world.”

Lady A (Fan Fair Memory – Hillary) OC: …extra special. :23
“I have been raised as being at the fairgrounds with no air conditioning and actually helping take photos of the fans with my mom. I would like stand and take everybody’s camera, so I was a part of it. And actually in high school, I volunteered at the City of Hope, the softball game, for a couple of years. So, I mean, born and raised in Nashville, this has been a part of my life, my whole life, so now to be a part of it as an artist is extra special.”

Little Big Town (CMA Music Fest) OC: (Phillip) …the best, man. 1:43
KIMBERLY: “We played at the fairgrounds. I guess it was the last year at the fairgrounds. We had just gotten our record deal.” PHILLIP: “I remember we were just about to walk out on stage, and we had to play acoustic. I mean there was no backing band.” KIMBERLY: “We were at Mercury. They wanted us to play before Wynonna sang.” PHILLIP: “I remember, my hair was short and Wynonna walked by and tuffed my hair and was like, ‘Oh that’s cute…cute red hair boy.’ [laugh] I was like, ‘Oh great.’ Like little puppy dog, ‘You’re gonna be OK, kid.'” KIMBERLY: “We were nervous.” KAREN: “Oh my gosh, were so nervous. We were so green.” KIMBERLY: “We didn’t have many songs at that point. Maybe three songs, which is what we sang. It was all we knew at the time which is what we had worked up. Because literally we got our record deal in May, and that was June.” KAREN: “And they were like, ‘Why don’t you guys sing a couple songs?’ And, we’re like, ‘Good, because a couple is what we know.’ That was fun. And then moving form that to the stadium shows, to me that the most fun you can ever have…CMA Fest, Stadium shows. It is an energy unlike anything else. It was over the top and I could just come out of my skin at those moments. KIMBERLY: “Me too.” KAREN: “It’s like you just want to float.” PHILLIP: “And it’s like the best country crowd you could ever compile. Every country fan from all over the world wants to be there. That’s like the crux of country music awesomeness. I’m telling you it is the best fun.” KAREN: “It’s the best feeling out there.” KIMBERLY: “They let them line up and all come across the stage so you have all these people that are so giddy, crazy giddy, because they get to walk up close to the stage.” PHILLIP: “And they’re waving and their arms are about to fall off. They’re just so excited. It’s the best.”

Luke Bryan (fan club name) OC: …words, you know. :13
“That’s the name of my fan club – the Nut House, because they’re nutty and my Daddy’s a peanut farmer. I figured I spent my whole life hauling around peanuts, I would name…just a play on words, you know.”

Scotty McCreery (fan support) OC: …back to us. :31
“My fans are incredible. I tell them that every night on stage, and a lot of artists say thanks to the fans and ‘you’re the reason I’m here,’ but for me, it’s literal because they voted me through (American Idol), they’ve been with me since then. They’ve helped make the album platinum, the album gold, come to my concerts. In a sense, I really owe all this to them. They’ve really kind of helped make me who I am. I enjoy the chance to go out there and make music for them. I enjoy going out there to sing a concert for them. The biggest thing for me is when I look out and see the fans and they’re smiling, having a good time. Dancing, singing the songs back to us.”