Country music is poetry said Zac Brown. Picture supplied.
Country music, said Zac Brown of the Zac Brown Band, is a living, breathing form of poetry. It’s about real songs about life and things that we go through every day of our lives. This belief is at the heart of everything the Zac Brown Band does. It’s from the lyrics they write to the performances they deliver.
To Brown, it’s a genre that captures life’s most impactful moments in simple, relatable lines. It’s a craft that Brown has spent his entire career working on. And in a music industry where form and style can spring into life as quickly as it dies again, Brown said that country music has endured. That is because of its simplicity and authenticity.
“People think that they don’t like or resonate with country music, but then they find the right country music. Then they’re like, ‘Wow, this really speaks to me,’” he said. It is about telling real stories with real emotion. That is something that he and his band endeavour to do in every song.
To this end the Zac Brown Band’s music is filled with humour, life lessons, and emotive storytelling. Tracks like the classic Chicken Fried are more than just songs.
“It’s very much a list of things that we believe in, and that’s what resonates. That’s what connects with people,” Brown said. He sees songwriting, particularly in country music, as one of the last places where true poetry lives.
“We aim to create that poetry that’s relatable to someone because we all have the human condition. We all go through a lot of similar things. Yet how do you sing about that in a way that makes people feel something?”
This is why Brown takes songwriting very seriously. He said that he is always chasing the perfect line. A line that can encapsulate a multitude of emotions in just a few words. Yet, he said, it is very challenging to distil complex ideas into simple, impactful lyrics. Legends like Willie Nelson have mastered the art, he shared.
“There’s genius in the way that he simply stated things,” he said. “That’s what we’re always chasing with a song. How to write them so simply and poetically where people are like, ‘I couldn’t have said that better myself.’”
This is probably why the multi award-winning band has racked up so many achievements in the ten years. More southern rock group than limited to country music, the Zac Brown Band’s six consecutive albums reached the top ten of the Billboard 200. Five debuted at number one on Billboard’s Country Albums chart.
The band has won three Grammy Awards, sold over thirty million singles and nine million albums. They also amassed over 10 billion streams. The band was also inducted into the Fenway Music Hall of Fame in 2022. They now keep company with legends like Paul McCartney and Billy Joel.
The road to success for the Zac Brown Band has been anything but typical of today’s run of the mill ‘get into the studio and let the machine make the music’ bubble-gum journeys. Brown shared the band’s early days, long before they had a record deal, when they were on the road, playing hundreds of shows a year and living in tight quarters.
“We lived for ten years before we had a record deal,” he said. “We dedicated our entire lives to this (country) music, and with this same group of people, for a very long time.” This shared history has created a unique bond among the band members, one that Brown said is evident in every live performance and each recording. He has led the band since its genesis.
“If you’re a good band leader, then you’re the worst person in the band,” Brown said. “You surround yourself by people that are incredible musicians that can help pull it all off.”
“When you’re a real band, like my band is, we live together, we create the music together, we perform together,” he said and added that no programming or machine can replicate or replace that creative energy. “You can’t fake chemistry. Neither can you buy that. You must live it.” This authenticity, the realness of the band’s own working experiences has been the foundation of their success he suggested.
The band is also busy writing new material. “We’re working on a new album right now that’s going to come out next year,” Brown shared. The band recently spent time in Alaska arranging songs and he said that the next release will be built on what the band has always delivered, and believed in, musically. A new single Tie Up is due for release this month.
In October Brown and his band will be in South Africa to headline the Cape Town Country Music Festival at DHL Stadium on 27 October. While he loves visiting South Africa as a tourist, Brown is excited to debut on stage. “Getting to get in front of people in South Africa for the first time is a really big deal to us,” he said.
Fans can expect all the hits and a few surprises, he said. “Our band is one of those that you must see live to understand what it is all about. Getting to play front and centre for an audience, for South Africans, that’s what we’re excited for,” said Brown.
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