Universal Universal Music Group Nashville Pressroom

Eric Church (introspective album) OC: …or play it. :41
“I think it’s more introspective. What I chuckled about is when ‘The Outsiders’ came out and everybody thought it was going to be a progressive rock record, I kind of chuckled when it was happening. I mean, I enjoyed that, ‘cause I was sitting there going, ‘You’re judging it on the first song,’ and it’s probably the most introspective we’ve done. I mean, you can take two or three tracks on the album that are just very real. ‘Dark Side’ is another one that’s very real and very introspective. To me, it shows maturity. It shows I’m not trying to figure out what people want me to be or want us to be. That’s just how it is right now, and at this stage in the career, I feel comfortable enough that to just say it or write it or sing it or play it.”

Eric Church (sequencing songs on the new album) OC: …made this thing. :35
“We really think about how this record should be laid out, and this one way more than any. This way more than any, because there’s a couple moments on this album that if you take the individual song out of place and play it by itself, I don’t love it near as much as I do on the album, and the space that it gives songs in-between it. I’ve not had that before with any of the albums we’ve done. I have it at two definite times on this album where I need the song on the album, but when I hear it separate, I don’t get the same thing, and I think that’s a testament to the way we made this thing.”

AJ (Valentine’s Day) OC: …continue to. :24

“We got a lot of history together now, and we’re happier than we’ve ever been. So, she’s still beautiful, and she’s always inspired songs. I mean, one of my early hits was a song called ‘I’d Love You All Over Again,’ I wrote for her for our 10^th anniversary. I mean, there’s been a zillion songs that have pieces of our good days and bad days inspired, and they continue to.”

Billy Currington (Valentine’s Day memory) OC: …took off running. :21
“Yeah, I remember my first girlfriend. I was in first or second grade, but anyway, I remember it was Valentine’s Day and your mom going, ‘You’ve got to give your girlfriend something, and you’ve got to go give it to her.’ I’ll never forget — we got her a box of chocolates or whatever it was. I remember going down to her classroom and knocking on the door, getting her to come to the door. I remember handing it to her, and then I took off running.”

Carrie Underwood (Valentine’s Day-chocolate) OC: …white chocolate. :14
“Chocolate’s every woman’s friend – in their time of need or in their time of happiness or in their time of sadness or madness, chocolate is my friend. Anything with caramel in it, ooooooooh. White chocolate’s good too. You can’t beat some good white chocolate.”

Dierks Bentley (Valentine’s Day) 1 OC: …want to. :19

“Well, before, as a single guy in the past, if you were dating someone, it’s that holiday that comes along where you have to really like stamp out on paper exactly where the relationship really stands. You don’t want to undershoot it ’cause then you’ll be in trouble, you know, if you don’t give the right present or don’t say the right things, you’re gonna be in the doghouse. But then if you overstate your hand, then you’re moving the relationship way faster than you actually want to.”

Dierks Bentley (Valentine’s Day-most interesting gift he’s given his wife) OC: …formulate yourself. 1:19
“When ‘What Was I Thinkin’’ was released in 2003, I didn’t know what my life would look like, and all of a sudden, I found myself out on the road full-time, just gone. So, the place where I was staying, I had some friends pack it up and move it into a storage facility…and in there I found some letters that she and I had written back and forth when we were dating. I was working at The Nashville Network and she was working out in San Francisco and found some letters I had written her and I’d gotten back and some stuff she’d sent me, including a CD of songs she’d been listening to, back when you made CD mixes and there’s like these three hearts on that CD. I just found that it was so meaningful for me those gifts you give each other before any money, before anything else was going on, just music, giving of mixtapes was so cool. She reminded me of a mixtape that I had sent her. I’d sent it to her via FedEx, because it was so important she get this as quickly as possible. This was sadly before, I guess we had internet back then, but you really couldn’t send songs over the internet. I think the most interesting thing I’ve given her and she’s given me was just mixtapes, because there’s nothing like music to put into words and the thoughts you have in your head that you can’t formulate yourself.”

Dierks Bentley (Valentine’s Day) 2 OC: …could before. :28

“You get married and that’s a long-term, bigger image of what love can be. Then you have a child, and your heart gets spread so thin and it’s so vulnerable, like it’s a really tough, tough feeling, and it can kill you. It can really be painful at times, and at the same time, it’s so great. But it definitely stretches your heart…and it doesn’t change anything, it just makes your heart, I think it just makes it bigger. I think you just find that you can love more than you ever thought you could before.”

Eric Church (Valentine’s) OC: …love song is. :19

“True love to me is when you love a person in spite of all their fallibilities, and for me, I have a lot of ‘em. I’m definitely at times hard to love, and that’s what’s great about Katherine and the way she loves me. She loves me in spite of those things and really for those things.”

George Strait (Love) OC: …go ‘round. :14
“If you don’t have love, I mean what do you have? You know, you have love for your wife or your husband or your children or your dogs or your horses or your golf clubs, you know? Love is what makes the world go ‘round.”

Jon Pardi (Valentine’s Day – Summer) OC: …for you. (laughs) :35
“One thing Summer has taught me is that gifts are cool, diamonds, blah, blah, blah, but to take your time and clear your mind and write something about what she means to you on a card is probably the most least expensive and the biggest price you can give her is just to write and tell her how much you love her on a little card. That’s what she taught me for Valentine’s Day, so I just do that. It’s way cheaper. (laughs) And of course, I always say to her, ‘Babe, every day is Valentine’s Day for you.’” (laughs)

Jordan Davis (meeting wife) OC: …here we are. :47
“My college roommate was getting married in New Orleans. My wife was in New Orleans for a totally separate wedding. Both wedding parties were staying at the same hotel, so we met, the first time, in the lobby of the hotel. I’m actually wearing a necklace that has the coordinates to that hotel. Then the next day, me and my brother walk into a bar in New Orleans, and her and her friends were sitting in the corner, and I was like, ‘Hey-that’s the girl from the lobby.’ She was actually dating somebody at the time. But we kind of exchanged numbers and stayed in contact, and about two months later, a month later, she came into town for CMA Music Fest and told me that she no longer had a boyfriend, and here we are.”

Jordan Davis (Valentine’s Day tradition) OC: …happy Valentine’s. (laughs)
“When it comes to Valentines, Kristen is way more romantic than I am. I’m not a very romantic guy. I have worked on it.  I’ve tried to get a little bit better over the years. Kristen loves chocolate so she’s good for a big chocolate box, but here’s our thing about Valentine’s Day, and this is the God’s honest truth. We’ve been going to Olive Garden on Valentine’s Day since we met. We’ve continued that tradition. I think it started with her and a friend, they used to always go to Olive Garden on Valentine’s Day before they started dating, or before they got in a relationship. So, we have carried that out, so this year will be our, I believe our eighth Valentines in a row where we go in for endless salad and bread sticks. So, if its Valentine’s Day, and you’re at an Olive Garden, we could be next to each other. So, yeah, hope to see somebody out there at the table next to us just hammering on some breadsticks. So, happy Valentine’s.” (laughs)

Jordan Davis (love song) OC: …well done! :25
“I guess Valentine’s Day gets you to thinking about love songs. You know, me and my wife’s first dance was ‘I’m Gonna Lose You’ [by] John Legend and Meghan Trainor. I think that’s just an amazing love song. I think also a love song that I heard the other day? ‘Strawberry Wine’ from Deana Carter? Great love song. I listened to that a lot. Ooooh Deana Carter. Well done.”

Josh Turner (Romantic) OC: …long time to come. :26
“If you ask my wife Jennifer if I was a romantic, she would definitely say, ‘Yes,’ but she knows that sometimes my hectic schedule and our busy lifestyles can kind of interfere with the romantic side of things. But we do try to make efforts towards being together and having adult conversations and taking time away from the children and doing things that husbands and wives do, so we’ll definitely try to continue that for a long time to come.”

Keith Urban (Nicole support) OC: …very important. :17
“I feel very blessed that I have the support of my family like I do. It’s a beautiful thing having two artists because we understand the passion and the responsibility of what we get to do. It’s very important.”

Kylie Morgan (Valentine’s Day) OC: …I’ve ever had. :33
“Man, I will say my husband Jay Allen, who is also a country music artist if you guys haven’t heard of him, he is the most romantic person I’ve ever met in my entire life, truly. For Valentine’s Day, gosh, two years ago, I came home to the entire house being lit with tiny candles, a whole dinner made with my favorite bottle of wine, and this was even before he proposed. So, a lot of people thought that he was gonna pop the question that night, but he saved that for a later time. But it was the most magical Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had.”

Little Big Town (Kimberly falling in love) OC: …healed me. 1:20
Kimberly: “Well, I wasn’t planning on falling in love, at all. I didn’t want to…I wasn’t sure that I ever would.  So, my husband now and I were just really good friends, and after my late husband died all my friends were calling me, all the time. Just checking up on me. He was just an old friends. We had known each other for about six years and he started calling me just like everybody else did.  But, he started calling me more than everybody else did [laughs]. We had both been through similar losses, he hadn’t lost a mate but he had lost a close friend, so we kind of bonded over that. I grieved, kind of, at him a lot. He took my grief, I had a lot of grief left, and he just took it and listened and accepted it and was so understanding and let me talk about my late husband all the time. We still talk about him a lot, and he’s totally fine with it. He says that, that made me who he fell in love with and he never minds if I bring anything from the past up which is just really sweet. I was shocked, I remember when I first realized that I was having feelings. I just thought, OK, this is so weird.  What is this?  I haven’t felt this in a long, long, time. This is weird. But, eventually I allowed myself and it’s been the most beautiful gift of my life. It pulled me out of the deepest hole that I’ve ever been in and healed me.”

Little Big Town (Jimi & Karen fell in love) OC: (Kimberly) …to be together. :48

JIMI: “We were in the band a long time before there was ever anything which is interesting. I think there was always something underlying there that we were kind of trying to ignore. And then when the opportunity came, when all of us, ended up single kind of at the same time, a very strange turn of events for the band in a lot of different ways. And those feelings, you were able to come out with them finally. It was like, we’re single. Let’s get together. And, you know, she has a beautiful heart and she’s absolutely gorgeous and I just love her dearly.”

PHILLIP: “Get a room!” [laughs]

KIMBERLY: “They’re a perfect match. They really are. They were meant to be together.”

Little Big Town (Phillip – reasons fell in love) OC: …real love. :17
“I think everything that I had gone through before had prepared me to be ready to see that there was genuine love there for me, and my Rebecca.  So, it was just a great time, I wouldn’t have been ready before I met her…Now it’s just been a really great journey to heal through the past and to know real love.”

Luke Bryan (married college sweetheart) OC: …married. :27
”I married my college sweetheart. We dated back in college and broke up for nearly six years, and while I was off doing my Nashville stuff and touring and writing songs, she was finishing getting her career kind of going. Man, we just kinda bumped into each other one night, and it was like bam, here we are married.”

Luke Bryan (love song with Caroline) OC: …That’s it! :11
“Caroline and I, we had a love song in college. It was Lenny Kravitz’ [starts singing] ‘I just can’t get you off of my mind.’ That’s it!”

Maddie & Tae (Tae talking about husband Josh) OC: …that way, you know? :45
“From the moment I met Josh, he never shied away from sharing what’s on his heart. For me, sharing what’s on my heart is sometimes hard, but he always created the environment and dynamic of it’s totally normal to open up and let people to see that side of you. And so, the more we spent time together, the more I kind of adopted that mindset of like, ‘Okay, I can be vulnerable. I can take risks. I can put myself out there and maybe get rejected, but maybe it could be awesome.’ Our relationship is that to a T. I was skeptical at first and I was scared, and he was scared. And we both just, we went all in, and I felt so safe to go there with him and he’s always made me feel that way, you know?”

Travis Denning (writing 2 songs for Madison) OC: …that way. :40
“I had the title ‘Second Best Thing’ I think right when me and Madison started dating and really started getting serious. It’s funny to look back that I wrote a song about getting married that early in our relationship, but for as creepy as that might sound (laughs), I mean, it’s just the truth. I knew really fast that we were going to spend the rest of our life together, and then I later wrote ‘New Year’s Kiss’ just recalling that kind of initial moment that I knew we’d probably end up being more than just friends. I recorded them a while ago and have just been holding on for the right moment to put them out, and I wanted this to kind of feel like a gift to her, and I hope it comes off that way.”

Darius Rucker (Toby Keith) OC: …did that. :14
“Toby’s a legend, you know, songwriting and just everything he did, he’s a legend. I think he left behind great songs. That’s what you want to do when you do what we do, you want to leave behind great songs and Toby definitely did that.”

Reba McEntire (preparing to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl) OC: …start singing. :43
“Well, for us to get ready to sing the National Anthem, of course we had to find out what I was going to wear. So, (prominent fashion designer) Cristina Ehrlich, oh man, she hooked us up with Ralph Lauren to make my outfit for me to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. I have never met Ralph Lauren, and I am so excited because I’ve been a huge fan of him for many, many years and that I’m gonna get to wear a Ralph Lauren outfit, it’s oh, just so exciting. Then Adam Blackstone put the music together for me and we were gonna do it acapella, but Adam said, no, it might be better with the band, so we have that ready to go, and now, it’s just let’s get there and start singing.”

Reba McEntire (Super Bowl press conference) OC: …to sing it. :29
“Well, it means a lot. I haven’t sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. I am honored beyond words to be chosen to get to sing it. It means that I get to sing a very special song for all Americans, people all around the world, who have really worked so hard for our freedom and to give us peace, and it’s not about me. I’m the representation of this song, and I’m just honored to get to sing it. It’s a good one. I’ve been doing it for 50 years, and I’m really proud to get to sing it.”

Reba McEntire (tips to prepare) OC: …walk out there. :31
“Well, I prepare by being prepared. I’ve been singing the National Anthem in the shower, when we get in the car. Rex, my boyfriend, is a huge football fan, played all sports when he was going to school, and he’ll say, ‘Ok, sing it one more time.’ I said, ‘I think I know the words real good right now, so I’m alright.’ But just to be prepared and know that everybody’s gonna be singing it with me, that helps. If I know if they’re singing along and they’re remembering and having fun too, that’s easier on me, but just to be prepared when you walk out there.”

Darius Rucker (Super Bowl 2024) OC: …a great game. :24
“Yeah, the Dolphins had a great year. There was a minute that I thought we were going to the Super Bowl and it was very disappointing when we didn’t make it, but it’s gonna be another great year. The Chiefs and the 49ers are gonna be a great game. The funny thing is I don’t know who I think is going to win right now. The Chiefs have so much experience and have been there four out of the last six years and have done great things, but the 9ers are playing such great football also, so I don’t know who’s gonna win, but I hope for a great game.”

Darius Rucker (Madden Bowl 2024) OC: …Madden Bowl again. :22
“My strategy is to play man-to-man defense and try to run the ball a little to try to slow the game down. You know, a lot of guys come on and just throw it around and that’s a great way to play, but I like to run it a little bit, see what happens and then maybe you can break something big. But I love Madden. It’s one of my favorite things. I’ve been playing since Madden 1, so it’s great to be playing the Madden Bowl again.”

Billy Currington (football fan) OC: …love football. :36
“I’m a big football fan. I mean, when I was growing up, if you asked me who my favorite team is now, I couldn’t tell you. But when I was a kid, it was the Dallas Cowboys. And I don’t know if it was because my mom bought my brother a Pittsburgh Steelers pennant, for some reason, and bought me a Dallas Cowboys pennant, and of course over the year I fell in love with the Cowboys, and then I wanted a jersey the next Christmas, and then the next one, I wanted [more Cowboys stuff]. So, I became a long-term fan with those guys. But I like it all now that I’m older. I’ll watch any game; it doesn’t matter who’s playing. But [I] love football.”

Carrie Underwood (loves being a part of SNF) OC: …my whole life. :54
“I love being the voice of Sunday Night Football because I grew up watching football…from birth. I’m from Oklahoma – we’re a football state. It’s just a part of the country that everybody has their teams and there’s such an energy about it. We would drive down to Dallas and watch the Cowboys play whenever we could. There’s just something about being at a live sporting event or watching it on TV. You have your favorites. They have their rivals. There’s an excitement to it that really, it’s unlike anything else, so being a small part of that is absolutely amazing. It’s been so wonderful working with everybody at SNF, and I count myself very lucky and very blessed that I get to be a small part of something that I’ve loved my whole life.”

Darius Rucker (football) OC: …football season. :20
“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve loved football, and I love how physical it is. I love the chess match of the game. I love the speed of the game. I love college football, but for me watching pro football is better because the speed is so much more. For me, there’s two times a year, man — football season and waiting for football season.”

Dierks Bentley (Super Bowl 2024) OC: …Santa Tracker. :50
“I have been watching every single playoff game. It’s the great thing. In my house is the Kansas City Chiefs because my daughters love Taylor (Swift). Any dad out there that has daughters knows what I’m talking about. She has made football much easier to watch at my house. Everybody’s down with it now, so I’ve been able to watch a lot of playoff games with my family, which is amazing. I’m not out there in the garage. I’m allowed to be in the main part of the house watching football, and it’s so fun. As far as the Super Bowl goes, I have no idea who’s going to win, but I’m there for the whole thing. I’m there for the pre-show concerts, the introductions, our National Anthem, the half-time show and of course, the game. It’s going to be awesome. I have no idea who’s going to win, but I just hope Taylor Swift makes her flight from Japan back to the game, because that’s what we all want to see. That’s going to be the most followed flight. It’ll be followed more than the Santa Tracker.”

Jon Langston (Atlanta Falcons) OC: …cool place too. :17
“Favorite team in the NFL is the Falcons. You know, growing up an hour from Atlanta, I just loved the Falcons, I guess, and going to the games and stuff. Going to the Georgia Dome was a pretty big deal, and we got to play there in high school and stuff, and it’s sad to see that it’s gone, but Mercedes Benz is a pretty cool place too.”

Jon Pardi (football) OC: …two great teams. :12
“I grew up playing football and it was always the 9ers, you know? Like we looked up to those guys. I looked up to the 49ers. It was like our local team, and I guess I just never lost that spark from when they went to the Super Bowl.”

Keith (Nicole and football) OC: …new to me. :04

“She’s a big NFL fan, and she sort of turned me on to it.”

LBT (Super Bowl 2020) OC: (Phillip) …win this game. :29
JIMI: “This game is gonna be fun. Of course, my team is the Tennessee Titans, so I don’t have quite the heart connection that I do with these two teams. (Phillip: “I like Mahomes though.”) But I’m excited because I think it’s gonna be a great game. They match up very interestingly, and I think it’s gonna be fun to watch. I don’t think anybody’s gonna stop Mahomes, though. Shew. The 49er defense, they are for real.” PHILLIP: “If you can pick apart the 49er defense, you can win this game.”

LBT (football story) OC: …my lip. :40
“I was the quarterback to my powder puff team. I was running the ball and I came around the corner – this was in high school – and a foreign exchange student, I think her name was Inga (KIMBERLY: “Inga.”), and I didn’t want to fumble ‘cause my brother and my dad were there, and I come from this very athletic family, so I held onto the ball. I knew I was going to go down, so I let my head hit first and I bit all the way through, but I didn’t fumble and I had a hole in my face, though. The sad thing is that it was just flag football, but I left my flags on and cleats and everything, ‘cause it looked cool, and I had blood running all down my jersey. I went to the emergency room like that, and they sewed up my lip.”

Luke Bryan (Super Bowl food) OC: …over again. :22
“Definitely Super Bowl is like the queso, the Frito Lay scoops with the Ro-tel situation. I guess it’s like, what’s the black-eyed pea stuff too? All of that, just stuff that you can sit there and have lots of sodium, and then just, it’s like Thanksgiving all over again.”

Priscilla Block (Football/Super Bowl food) OC: …what happens. :23
“I mean, I feel like the Super Bowl is like just such a fun day. I’m really excited for the half-time show. I feel like that’s usually why I’m there, is to watch the anthem and the half-time show, but yes, excited to eat all the bad things. And I’m honestly, I don’t feel pulled any way this year. I wish the (Tennessee) Titans were in it, but we’ll see what happens.”

Reba McEntire (full circle moment National Anthem) OC: …they asked me. :35
“It’s absolutely amazing coming full circle, 50 years after being discovered by Red Steagall me singing the National Anthem at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. That was in 1974. Little did I know, I had no idea 50 years I’d be singing (laughs) the National Anthem at this year’s Super Bowl. Omigosh. I don’t even have the imagination to say that I would be doing something like this. I’m absolutely thrilled to pieces that they asked me.”

Reba McEntire (football fan) OC: …at the Super Bowl. :42
“I’ve always liked football, even in high school. As the Singing McEntires and being a part of the Kiowa High School Cowboy Band in Kiowa, Oklahoma where I went to school for 12 years, we were part of the half-time entertainment there at the school. We’d pull the trailer out and we’d play at half-time for our football games, and then my boyfriend, Rex Linn, absolutely loves college football. I really get into that, and I cheer for the Longhorns in Austin, Texas. And now getting to sing at the Super Bowl, I think Rex was more excited than I was, if that’s at all possible. I’m a huge, a huge fan of the Kansas City Chiefs, so I will be cheering them on at the Super Bowl.”

Reba McEntire (Super Bowl snacks) OC: …gonna be great. :30
“Omigosh, wouldn’t it be neat if we could cook up some recipes out of my Not That Fancy book and you know, like the ranch dressing from Reba’s Place, that’s my restaurant in Atoka, Oklahoma, with chicken tenders and the beer cheese dip? Okay, if y’all don’t know what I’m talking about, get online and get the Not That Fancy book. It’s pretty cool, lots of pictures and what it’s supposed to look like when you get through making it. That’s gonna be great.”

Sam Hunt (Super Bowl & music) OC: …combined there. :24
“It’s become such a massive pop culture event, and I love that they’ve incorporated music and entertainment with the sport itself and the entertainment value that comes from that. It encompasses just a strong representation of American culture, and I’m a huge music fan, obviously, and I’m a huge sports fan, so those are two of my favorite worlds combined there.”

Sam Hunt (Peyton Manning) OC: …with music. :39
“When I was in high school, I went to a camp called the Manning Academy, and it’s a quarterback camp down in Louisiana. And I got to spend some time with Peyton and Eli, and they have another brother [Cooper]. I’ve followed [Peyton’s] career for a long time,” he says. “Actually, a couple of years ago, I was at a concert of Kenny Chesney’s in Denver, and I was standing there side stage and Jake Owen was there. He had opened up for [Kenny], and I’ve been a friend of his for a little while, and he turned and introduced me to the guy behind us, who I wasn’t aware of at the time, but it turned out to be Peyton Manning. He was just a really nice guy, and it was just pretty cool to be on the stage with two people who inspired me in two different arenas, with Peyton with football and Kenny with music.”

Travis Denning (Super Bowl 2024) 1 OC: …very clutch. :13
“I believe the Kansas City Chiefs are gonna win the Super Bowl. I just think Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the post season are just built different. They’ve been there before. They’re just used to it. I think they’re very clutch.”

Travis Denning (Super Bowl 2024) 2 OC: …love story. :09
“Honestly, I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing Taylor Swift in the crowd. I think it’s been awesome this year to see her. Her and Travis Kelce’s just got an All-American love story.”

Travis Denning (go-to Super Bowl snack) OC: …other pick. :05
“My go-to Super Bowl snack is buffalo chicken dip, obviously. There’s no other pick.”

Travis Denning (National Anthem) OC: …your life. :27
“The National Anthem, I think, is one of the hardest songs to sing that we sing regularly in this country. It’s essentially two very full octave ranges and every note matters. It has to be powerful. It takes an amazing singer to sing it. And the other thing that’s hard about is if you sing it great, everybody goes ‘that was cool,’ and then they forget about it two minutes later, and if you mess it up, they remember it for the rest of your life.”