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CRS 2021 – Q & A With DALLAS REMINGTON

Photo courtesy of dallasremington.com

 

Dallas Remington:  Hi, how are you doin’?

Patti McClintic:  I’m good, how are you?  This is my first time really chatting with you.  I saw you for, like, a minute or something, at The Local a little while ago.

Dallas Remington:  Yeah.  That was a crazy day.  I think I did, like, three gigs that day.  That was the first time I did that in a really long time, so I don’t know how to manage time anymore. (Laughing)

Patti McClintic:  I don’t think any of us do anymore.  I think we’re all living in some sort of weird vacuum where none of us know what we’re doing, but that’s alright, we’re managing.  So, go ahead, tell us all about you.  Tell us where you’re from, tell us about your background, give us the whole scoop, since it’s our first runaround here.

Dallas Remington:  Yeah.  Well, my name is Dallas Remington, obviously.  I am from Western Kentucky originally.  I moved to Nashville when I was almost 16, but I’ve been coming to Nashville since I was 11, chasin’ my dream and chasin’ my guitar is what I always say.  I just have always loved country music and I’ve always loved singin’.  My parents say it was what I was born to do, that’s why they named me Dallas and it’s been an incredible journey so far.  I turn 21 next week, so I’ve been here for nearly five years and it’s just been an amazing journey.  We’ve had five singles out at country radio, and almost got top 40 on Billboard now.  We got to number 43 with my first Billboard single, “Uncommon Man” last December.

Patti McClintic:  That’s so exciting.  Oh, and happy early birthday, by the way.

Dallas Remington:  Thank you!  Thank you, it was weird, I was sitting there last night and I thought, “My birthday’s next week,” but we can’t party because of the pandemic.

Patti McClintic:  My birthday’s this week, but I’m not gonna be 21. (Laughing)

Dallas Remington:  Happy early birthday then.

Patti McClintic:  Thank you.

Dallas Remington:  What day is your birthday on?

Patti McClintic:  It’s on Friday.

Dallas Remington:  Friday, that’s the…?

Patti McClintic:  The 19th.

Dallas Remington:  My brother’s is the 23rd and my dad’s was Sunday, so we’re all three right in a row.

Patti McClintic:  Oh, wow.

Dallas Remington:  And you’re right in the middle of the family birthdays.

Patti McClintic:  I’ll just join your family.

Dallas Remington:  Exactly!  We’ll just have a big party.

Patti McClintic:  Okay.  Virtually.  Or later.

Dallas Remington:  (Laughing)  Yes. Virtually.

Patti McClintic:  Yeah, so I saw that you were hitting all kinds of charts and Billboard at 43 is pretty darned good.

Dallas Remington:  Yeah, we were super excited, especially with it being my first single to Billboard.  You know, we’ve done the Music Row chart, we had such an amazing history over there.  This was our first top 25 over on the Music Row chart, and then I think we ended up, I can’t even remember, I think we were in the top 5 on the Independent charts, and then we got 43 on Billboard.  So, this was my first single, “Uncommon Man,” that we released to the Billboard chart.  My promoter, he gave me the heads up, he told me, “This is your first time out, let’s aim for top 60 and we’ll see what happens.”  So, we ended up with number 43 over there and number 49 on Mediabase, and we weren’t even working to Mediabase, so it was like, “Okay!”

Patti McClintic:  It’s a great song, it really is.  I listened to it several times after I did all the research.

Dallas Remington:  Thank you so much, we’re really proud of it.  It’s one we wrote several years ago, actually.  Most people think we wrote it during the pandemic because we dedicated it to the essential employees.  It seems so fitting for our time right now, but we wrote this a few years ago about our dads, my friend Courtney (Bumbacher) and I did.  We just wanted to write a song for them thanking them for the way they raised us.  We were just very fortunate to be able to write this song together and it’s always been one of my family’s favorites.  When it came to last May and the world shut down, we had another single literally ready to go.  Everyone knew what that single was going to be, and I just said, “It’s not right, it’s not right yet.  We’re in a weird place in the world.”

Dallas Remington:  So, I played “Uncommon Man” for the team and they were like, “That’s it! That’s the single,” and we were very blessed with the way the world accepted the song and the life the world gave it.  Because you never know, it’s all up to the fans, it’s all up to radio, it’s all up to everyone else to give the song an actual life, and they just took the song and ran with it.  We’re at nearly 600,000 streams across the board now, which is crazy, because we’d never got over 100,000 before, so we’re like, “Yes!  Here we go!”  Then with the charting it got on radio it was just truly a blessing in disguise.  I didn’t know what was gonna happen with the song, and I was so honored to be able to dedicate it to the essential employees, and dedicate it to all the men and women out there who are on the frontlines taking care of us to make our world continue going around.

Patti McClintic:  Yeah, it’s really good, congratulations.

Dallas Remington:  Thank you, thank you so much.

Video courtesy of Dallas Remington and YouTube

Patti McClintic:  You’re welcome, very much deserved.  You have been playing since you were so young.  Did you just one day pick up a guitar, or did you come from a musical family?  Or how did that all come about?

Dallas Remington:  So, my great grandfather who I never met, on my mom’s side, they say he could pick up any instrument and just start playin’ it like a pro.  I was not that blessed, but I did love music, so my grandmother, that was her father, we called her “Mapaw,” so Mapaw suggested I start taking guitar lessons because she knew I loved to sing.  There was a local Opry back home, and they offered guitar lessons and singing lessons and then you could play in their shows.  I’ve always loved to sing and I picked up the guitar, I didn’t love it at first, but then my brother started taking lessons and he got so much better than me, and I’m super competitive.  Him doing that really pushed me.  I fell in love with the guitar, oh my gosh, I would sit here and play guitar and do nothing else.  It’s just my favorite thing to do.  So, that really pushed me towards that.

Patti McClintic:  Well, thank you dear brother.

Dallas Remington:  Yeah, thank you Lawson.  We’re very competitive people.  He was like, “I’m gonna get better than you,” and he did, within a month.  I was like, “Uh uh.  No honey, that’s not happenin’.”  Then that really pushed me to fall in love with it.  I started performing back home at the local Opry and they posted a video of me on YouTube.  A producer here in Nashville saw it and invited me to start performing on his TV shows and he would do some live showcases as well, and it’s been non-stop ever since.  My first performance in Nashville was in May of 2011 and we have literally not slowed down since.

Patti McClintic:  That is incredible.  Obviously, I saw you at The Local and I was blown away.  That was really by chance.  We had actually gone in for lunch that day and ended up closing the place.  We really did not intend to stay there even as late as when you were there, so it was a good day.  We spent way too much money.  (Laughing)  One of the songs I really loved that you did that day was “Huntin’ Season.”  Can you tell me a little about that song?

Dallas Remington:  Yeah.  So, “Huntin’ Season” was co-written with Cyndi Torres, Scott Barrier and another one of my favorite independent artists, Allie Colleen.  We had so much fun, and that was kind of one of those, I call it a “magical write,” where you just go in and write it in one session.  A lot of times, you know, it takes a few times to get a magical song, but this time we just went in there and I had gotten this idea while I was in Mississippi the weekend before, I just wanted to write some sort of song about a magazine.  I was talkin’ to a friend, and he said that his wife had left him, and her magazines just kept comin’ to his house.  I was like, “There’s a song there somewhere.”

Dallas Remington:  So, I got back, literally the next day, and I was writin’ with the gang and I was like, “Well, I got this idea, but I kinda wanna make it a girl song so I could sing it.  So, what’s a magazine we could use?”  They said, “What’s a magazine your dad had layin’ around?”  I was like, “All he ever had was Field & Stream ”  They were like, “Alright.  There we go.  We’re gonna write the song about Field & Stream magazine.”  We created this entire “love gone wrong” story literally out of me sayin’ “All he ever had was Field & Stream,” and I love that song.  It’s so much fun, it’s a staple at the live shows and it’s one of my favorite songs to play.  All the credit goes to Scott for that groove.  He wrote that groove.  I was like, “This is kinda weird, but I really like it.”  I came home that night, learned it and I’ve played it at every show since.

Video courtesy of Think Country and YouTube

Patti McClintic:  Yeah, it’s super catchy and really fun and it hooked me in immediately.  I just thought it was a great song, really creative.

Dallas Remington:  Oh, my gosh.  Thanks!  My dog just came in.  (Dog made a cameo at this point)

Patti McClintic:  I was going to say that my cats might come walking in.  I was gonna give you the warning, but so far they haven’t.  What’s the dog’s name?

Dallas Remington:  Phoenix.

Patti McClintic:  Phoenix.  Phoenix is really adorable.  (Phoenix was very adorable)  I like it when pets make a random cameo.  So, shows are limited obviously,  but what do you have possibly comin’ up for 2021?  Anything?

Dallas Remington:  We actually booked three out-of-town gigs for March, praying this happens.  Looks like they’re gonna be in Oklahoma and Texas a couple times.  I’m super excited to be out on the road with my new friend Johnny Woods.  We’ve got some stuff that had been pushed back from last year that hopefully happens.  We don’t know, we’re waiting on confirmations.  We’ve got a new single that we’ll be releasing here in the next few months, it’s still kinda hush-hush, but it’s comin’.  I go in a week from tomorrow to do the final vocal and then we’re done, and we’re gonna start doing all the post-production stuff and we’re super excited about that.

Dallas Remington:  You know, just hopefully gettin’ back on the road as much as possible.  Whether that’s just being able to radio tour or just go do small, little acoustic showcases anywhere.  I’ve missed bein’ on the road so much.  So, that’s our goal, is hopefully to get out safely, you know, and to be able to provide social distanced entertainment or drive-in shows, we’ve done a few of those last year and those were great.  So, that’s our main thing, is just get back on the road and then release the new music.  We’re super excited about it.  We set our date a few weeks ago, and I’m busting to tell anybody, but I’m sworn to secrecy!  It’s like, “Come on!” (Laughing)  But we’re gettin’ really close to that, it’ll be in the next few months, and we’re just tryin’ to go through any open door we can go through safely.

Patti McClintic:  I hear that.  Okay.  Well, I think we’ve got everything, but what I’ve been doing is, I have this little “Chat Pack”, it’s a box of random questions.  Are you game for a random question?

Dallas Remington:  Sure.

Patti McClintic:  Alright.  I’m just gonna pull one out, I don’t know what it’s gonna be.  Alright.  It says, “What was your favorite thing to pretend when you were a young child?”

Dallas Remington:  Hmm.. my favorite thing to pretend when I was a young child?  Probably be a singer.  I’ve always loved it, you know.

Patti McClintic:  That was a good one, see?

Dallas Remington:  I always wanted to grow up to be a singer, so I’d run around singin’ into a hair brush like everybody else, and I think I had a little karaoke mic too.

Patti McClintic:  But you were probably good, as opposed to me.  When I sang into a hair brush my parents were like, “Oh, no, that’s not gonna be your gig.”

Dallas Remington:  I don’t know about that.  I had to take several vocal lessons, but yeah, that and soccer.  I used to pretend I was a soccer player.  That was my other career path I was gonna take, but I ended up with music.

Patti McClintic:  I think you did the right thing.

Dallas Remington:  Thank you.  (Laughing)

Patti McClintic:  Last but not least, when you “Think Country,” because we are Think Country, what do you think Dallas Remington?

Dallas Remington:  I think a lot about what I grew up with.  I grew up on a farm.  To me, when I think country, I think of farm life, I think of my family, I think of being home, for me, Kentucky.  I think of the great music that we’ve always had.  I grew up on traditional country music, that’s what they call it.  I call it “country” country music.  When I think country, I think of the songs that were about my raising, the songs we all grew up with.  The Loretta Lynns, the Dolly Partons, the songs that were about my life.  It’s kind of a mixed answer of what I think of when I think country.

Patti McClintic:  That’s all there is, right?  You are country.

Dallas Remington:  Right.  Thanks.  (Laughing)

Patti McClintic:  Thanks so much for talking with me today and happy CRS.

Dallas Remington :  Thank you for having me, happy CRS.

Patti McClintic:  You’re welcome.  Bye!

Dallas Remington:  Bye!

Photo courtesy of Dallas Remington

 

DALLAS REMINGTON can be found:

WEBSITE:  https://www.dallasremington.com/

FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/dallasremingtonmusic

INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/dallasremingtonmusic/

TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/DallasRemington

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb7fvmATNkXVIOs_POf0GzQ

*Featured photo courtesy of dallasremington.com

Visit https://thinkcountrymusic.com/ for even more articles, features, interviews and reviews.  Think Country is always bringing country closer.

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