Country superstar, Billy Currington, is in the class of country artists who have a special connection and devout following with the fans in New England. He has made his share of stops at nearly every venue in the region ranging from the Xfinity Theater in Hartford to The Big E fair, the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion, the House of Blues and even Gillette Stadium. For Billy, he feels like he always has great nights when he plays in New England, which has allowed him to really develop that strong connection with the fans over the years. “I feel like if I had grown up around there, I would have had many friends and had a really great life. I’m a big fan of the south because that’s where I’m from, but traveling around the world like I have, y’all have definitely got it going on. If I could pick anywhere else to live, I would live there,” Currington says of New England.
Billy is currently in the middle of his headlining Summer Forever tour, which is scheduled to come through New England this week. Stops include a sold-out show on March 24th at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom, March 25th at UMass Amherst’s Mullins Center, and March 26th at URI’s Ryan Center. Speaking of the tour, Billy describes, “It’s going really great, it seems like we’re just getting started to be honest. I can’t say enough about the Summer Forever tour. It’s been really nice, really easy. Lot easier than I thought taking on that headlining spot. There are definitely a couple challenges here and there but I’m working them out. I am having the best time. Most of all, we get to play a lot longer than we ever have before. That right there, in itself, is the best.” And when it came to planning this tour, Billy’s management approached him regarding who he wanted to open for him on the tour. For Billy, there was only one artist that came to mind immediately… Kelsea Ballerini! He recalls, “I remember saying, ‘there’s only one person that I can think of… Kelsea Ballerini.’ Because I saw so many great things happen with her. I had played a show with her a couple months prior and just meeting her and seeing her star thing happening so fast. Her whole camp, everything about her. I never really thought of anyone else. Thankfully, she said yes. I think it’s a great package. She brings a lot of people to the shows that have never heard my music and I feel like we bring a lot of people that haven’t heard her. That right there brings us all together.”
One thing that probably makes taking on the headlining spot of a tour easier than Billy expected, is that he has an arsenal of smash hits. With the release of his ‘Summer Forever’ album last summer, Billy charted his 10th Number One song with the lead single, ‘Don’t It.’ Earlier this year, on February 8th, he released the third single off the record- a song titled, ‘It Don’t Hurt Like It Used To,’ which he co-wrote with Cary Barlowe and Shy Carter. When it comes to choosing a single, Billy likes to look at which songs are getting the most reaction from the fans and that was the main reason why he chose ‘It Don’t Hurt Like It Used To’ as his next one. Fans were reacting to the track at live shows. They were also talking about it on social media and it was the most downloaded song off the album. So all the arrows pointed to ‘It Don’t Hurt Like It Used To.’
Billy also takes a lot of pride in the fact he was a songwriter on ‘It Don’t Hurt Like It Used To.’ “It’s nice to have something that you wrote out there because for me it feels like people connect a little bit more than they do if you didn’t write the songs. It definitely came from my heart and soul that day that we wrote it. I don’t know, maybe that’s why it connected the most,” he says. And this song actually came along by accident. He tells us, “I was actually on my way home after working with Dan Huff that day. We were just working on songs to complete the album. And still we needed two or three more. It was an accident because I called up Shy Carter on my way home and I remembered he told me he was in Nashville. So I said ‘I’d love to stop by and see you.’ Long story short, we weren’t together maybe 10 minutes and I picked up a guitar and started playing the D chord. And then Cary Barlowe picks up his guitar and adds that riff in there that you hear in the beginning and from there it’s almost like the song wrote itself. I’ve heard that so many times from other songwriters and I laugh. But this is one of those cases. It’s definitely true. There was no thinking. There was no title in place. After we wrote the lyrics, we didn’t go back and change them. It fell out just like the way you hear it on the record.”
As a whole, the ‘Summer Forever’ album is full of songs written by hit songwriters. Writers like Jaren Johnston, Ashley Gorley, Ross Copperman, Shane McAnally, among others. Even Cole Swindell and the guys of Florida Georgia Line have a cut on the record. And as Billy was coming up through the ranks, writing songs of his own, all of them were doing the same thing. So when he got his record deal, he had a network of songwriters that he had formed really good relationships with. He says, “Having a relationship with these people, they were more willing to give up their A+ type songs. I feel it’s a blessing to know them as people but also as songwriters. They have done nothing but bless my life a million times over.”
Billy has started writing songs quite a bit for the next album as he feels like when he finishes an album, the process starts over right away. But as for the rest of 2016, he will be touring until the end of November, when he will begin to start recording the songs. And after that, “then it’s time to take a break when wintertime comes. Go to Hawaii and catch some big waves. I’m very blessed.” From the road and Nashville, to the waves in Hawaii, it’s always ‘Summer Forever’ for Billy Currington.
Click here to purchase tickets to see Billy perform at UMass Amherst on March 25th.
Click here to purchase tickets to see Billy perform at URI’s The Ryan Center on March 26th.
You can purchase Billy’s album, ‘Summer Forever,’ on iTunes here.