Jason Aldean has collected twenty eight number one hits in his nearly two decades since releasing his first studio album. This success has contributed to him earning the ACM Award for “Artist of The Decade” in 2019, and cementing himself as one of the genre’s superstars.
Despite the accolades and massive hits, there will always be things that artists like Aldean will look back on in their career and see missed opportunities. In many cases, this pertains to passing songs for ideas to other artists just to see them blow up and become massive successes.
On an appearance on Tracy Lawrence’s podcast in 2022, TL’s Road House, Lawrence asked the Try That In A Small Town singer if there was any songs he passed on that somebody else had a hit with. Aldean points out one that he remembered well: Drunk On You by his buddy, Luke Bryan.
”They had pitched it to me and I was on a plane going to Vegas, listening to songs and if I remember right, we had a lot of my album done and we were kinda looking for like specific stuff like tempo or whatever it was and so that wasn’t it.”
Aldean gives a glimpse into what, in many cases, goes into that decision-making process on which songs to cut and which to pass on, regardless if they think it’s objectively great. Every artist has their own unique sound and they are often given ideas that just don’t fit what they’re looking for at that specific time. Aldean continues:
“I remember liking the song but it was just like man, that’s not what I’m looking for today.”
“So I passed it and the next thing I know, Luke comes to my house and wants to play me his new album and I hear that song and I’m like damn it! That’s a good one. I missed that one.“
There is obviously no bad blood nor full-blown regret here for Aldean- he and Bryan are longtime friends and he seems to see this missed opportunity as a great achievement for his friend rather than frustrating for himself.
His support for Bryan’s career has been very evident and Aldean even helped Bryan celebrate his 30th number one this year with a performance of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.
Aldean emphasizes that moments like this are just a part of their business and they happen from time to time. That being said, Drunk On You is currently 6x platinum and became Bryan’s fifth career number one at Country radio.
Check out the interview here. The portion mentioned starts at 29:46.