Sawyer Brown
Edited By Doug Hass
Country music's enduringly popular Sawyer Brown spend much of the early 1990's developing a reputation for social commentary, serious ballads, and ever more intense stage shows. The band soared to an all-time high with a 1992 Grammy Award nomination, three successive trophies in the fan-voted TNN/Music City News awards and a Top
Grossing Country Group salute from Amusement Business for its $3 million roadshow of 1994.
Where do you go from there? Back to basics, according to the group's leader, Mark Miller.
"The Faster and Louder' tour was a blast," says the gifted singer-songwriter. "But when the whole thing was over, it was like, 'What next?' I said, 'Well let's go in a completely opposite direction. Let's do something totally loose and totally fun.' Man, we are a garage band. That was the whole feeling I wanted to recapture, that feeling you had when you
were playing in your garage and pretending to play in front of all those people."
"This year, it's no-brainer fun. We'll let the audience just sweat along with us and enjoy an evening. The set's got a backyard/circus look. At some point during the show we are gonna drop beach balls and confetti, stuff that is just fun."
All of this fits with This Thing Call Wantin' and Havin' It All, Sawyer Brown's new Curb Records album. It is dominated by uptempo songs that, as usual, celebrate the lives of everyday Americans.
"When we were writing this album, I felt a lot of pressure from Cafe On The Corner and Outskirts of Town and songs like that. Lyrically, I felt we had moved mountains and created a whole new path for the band. But where do you go, then? So we decided no to worry about it. We just sat down and wrote whatever it was we had to say."
"Depth-wise, I think this is some of the better writing we have done. I think the potential here is huge. We've asked the label to let us have six singles from the album. And they are excited about that."
This Thing Call Wantin' and Havin' It All is the 13th Sawyer Brown album in a career that has been studded with triumphs. The group has sold more than 11 million records to date and scored 15 top 10 hits. More important, Sawyer Brown has established itself as one of the most durable acts in the history of modern country music. Only three other performers active 10 years ago are still making top-10 records today - Reba McEntire, George Strait, and Alabama. Like all of them, Sawyer Brown believes in a solid work ethic, attention to craftsmanship and a no-nonsense humility.
"I look at us as a blue-collar band," comments Miller. "We go up there and we work. I don't really have any explanation for our longgevity other than the fact that our band has always been more youth oriented. We were very young when we started and we're still younger than a lot of the new acts that are coming out."
"Also, we believe in doing our job and doing it well. We still do the same things we did when we first started out, meet the radio guys every night after every show, hang out with the contest winners, talk to the fans, call our radio stations, we still do all of that."
Doug Hass is Roughstock's Head Administrator
copyright 1996 Roughstock Productions, All Rights Reserved.
Thank you Doug Hass of
Roughstock Productions for letting me put up this interview.
| Doug Hass |