Back in 2011 was when many people had their first introduction to Scotty McCreery from Garner, North Carolina who at the time was just 17 years old. This mass initial introduction was in the form of being crowned the winner on season 10 of American Idol (which also launched the career of another of our favourite artists – Lauren Alaina who was the runner-up to McCreery on the season) but it has taken over 8 years, 3 number one albums and 2 number one singles to finally have him entertain European crowds for the first time and after selling out his debut show in London the morning tickets went on sale it was clear to see why he has been on so many fans wish list since first laying eyes on him during Idol.

Scotty McCreery on how being from the outskirts of Raleigh in North Carolina, he became a fan of the New England Patriots:

I was watching the game last night, we found a way to stream it over here! My dad is from about 45 minutes north of Boston so he’s from New Hampshire and Maine. I didn’t really have a choice, I had a Drew Bledsoe jersey when I was just a little toddler and was raised that way. None of my friends really love it so they don’t really like me during football season. They’ve had a good run but maybe coming to the end in the next couple of years as at some point you’d think Brady will have to retire and move on eventually!

Scotty McCreery on the value of an album being a project rather than just being driven by singles:

For sure and unfortunately that’s how a lot of things are changing for some people now with just putting out the singles instead of an album. I’ve always been kind of an old school guy even with the music I listened to growing up. So I’ve got a record player in my house and I just put the vinyl on and listen to the whole thing which is where my heads at when making an album to make a full body of work.

Scotty McCreery on his musical influences growing up:

Elvis was number 1! I started listening to him when I was 5 years old and still listen to him all the time today. It’s always the records of choice back home when I’m cooking a meal. Then a lot of the older stuff still like Ronnie Milsap and Randy Travis were big ones and onto newer guys: Josh Turner was huge for me growing up and Brad Paisley was again huge for me growing up.

Scotty McCreery on how it has taken quite a while to finally make the trip over the pond and play in Europe:

It hasn’t been my doing, I’ve been asking for years now to get over here! So timing just had to be right with tour dates and figuring it out when we could make it happen. Finally they came to me a few months ago and said hey we’ve got an opportunity and I didn’t even question it, so was like let’s do it!

Scotty McCreery on the experience of being in the UK on this trip:

Everyone’s been nothing but kind and so engaging which is really nice. Luckily they’ve been later shows, we don’t go on until 9:15/9:30 so we’ve been waking up at the crack of dawn and checking out the sights. I think we’ve got in most of the touristy stuff here. We’ve tried to find a local pub rather than more touristy ones but we had some Indian food yesterday and went down the curry mile in Manchester which I’ll be honest was the first time I’d had Indian food. I thought it was great, it was a little hot so I’m glad I had some water to go with it but my band loves it, they have it all the time and were excited about trying it over here the whole way over here.

Scotty McCreery on his first impression of crowds in the UK and Europe:

I’d heard how knowledgeable the fans were mainly. Back home the fans know the singles, they know what they hear on the radio and that’s about it then the other songs in the set they’ll check their phones or something. But here every song, like deep album cuts they are singing word for word and it makes you feel really good on stage when you see that.

Scotty McCreery on whether the shows over here have lived up to his expectations:

Absolutely, both of them were special but that first one in London I was jacked up for! We had a lot of people from Nashville come in and they were excited standing at side stage, my wife was there, the show was sold out. I mean I remember when the show went on sale just really not knowing what to expect with it being my first time over here then management called about an hour and a half later and said Hey, it’s sold out! Then I said WHAT!!! SO they said yeah, it’s already gone so I’ve been excited for that for a long time and they said let’s put another one on, I said yes and that one sold as well. We get to do that tonight so I’m just as excited. Will probably change up the set a little bit here and there.

Scotty McCreery on changing up sets between shows:

It’s fun, it keeps you on your toes and makes you think a little more which gets you excited. The first night in London we had someone come out to the show, his name was Max and he met me backstage and told me his favourite song was ‘I Love You This Big’ then I thought Man, we haven’t played that song in probably a year and a half but since you’re asking for it, we’ll throw it in. Me and the band worked it up, we went out there and played it which was fun as we hadn’t played it in a while so you do get to change things up a little bit here.

Scotty McCreery on the progress of new music:

We’ve been writing a lot, we’re gonna get back in the studio in December and start cutting our favourite songs we have written and see where we go from there. In between will probably be the last single off the ‘Seasons Change’ record, we’ll let the song run it’s course and hopefully peak where the other 2 did and after that we’ll hopefully have, if not the the full record at least enough of the record to put a single out there and start the next album process.

Scotty McCreery on whether following American Idol and people knowing him before they knew what he wanted to say lead him to a point where he needed to his own sound for himself:

I think that point came for me in 2016 when I’d just lost my record deal. We’d put out a single which I really was not thrilled about as I didn’t think it sounded like me by any means. At that point we had ‘Five More Minutes’ and ‘In Between’ in the can and we went the other route and it didn’t work out, lost the deal and it really just makes you sit back and reflect on who you are? Why are you doing this? What you want to say? What you want to sound like? I pretty much had a full year to do that and wrote a lot of songs in 2017 then we got going with more songs, put out ‘Five More Minutes’ later that year and kind of the rest is history. I did have kind of a year, year and a half of self reflection and finding my sound which I think helped a lot with this record and what I’m doing moving forward.

Scotty McCreery on the feeling of selling out shows in the UK and the desire to return:

That was a good feeling for sure, the feeling was great but getting out onto the actual show was better, seeing the crowd and seeing the smiles on the actual faces and seeing the excitement is what got me really going. I mean I’ve probably had more energy in these shows over in the UK and Europe than I have for a while. The crowds have been so energised that I feel I could feed off of that so it’s been great and it definitely makes you want to come back as soon as possible and do it all over again. I want to keep building! I’ve always heard other artists and people in Nashville say playing over here is just building blocks. You come over once and do this then just keep going forward. It’s a very engaged fan-base and they want new material, they want to be fed. In my mind coming back, if you’ve got something not even recorded yet you can probably sing the song to them today saying hey will you guys take a listen? Then by the next time you’d come over they’d have the words and be singing it with us! I think here would be a great place to try new music!

Scotty concludes his first European Tour tonight (October 28th) with another sold out show at Bush Hall in London. Going forward you can keep up to date with him on his Website Twitter Facebook & Instagram