Josh Abbott Band - "Wasn't That Drunk" (feat. Carly Pearce)

[sabre14]

Artist: Josh Abbott Band (feat. Carly Pearce)
Single: Wasn't That Drunk"
Writers: Matthew McGinn, Neil Medley, Emily Weisband
Album: Front Row Seat (Act 2)
Label: Pretty Damn Tough/1608 Label Service/Reviver Records

WBEE put "Wasn't That Drunk" up as their 'Music Meeting Song of the Day', so this will be the next single for the Josh Abbott Band. The song is the follow-up to "Amnesia."

I expect this to not get past the 60's of the Mediabase/Billboard chart but I know we have a few fans of this one here. :)

[matty005]

Add me as another fan of this song! I love it! Been listening to it for a few months now - glad it's getting an official release even if it won't do much on the charts.

[trebor]

This will be a monster at Texas and another #1! Was betting that "Ghosts* would follow "Amnesia". Great, great tune and instant classic!  :)

[gonecountry]

Good tune, but a bit muted IMO. My faves are along the lines of My Texas, Road Trippin', and I'll Sing About Mine.

[tvoss20]

Considering my future wife is a part of this song, I support it.

[dm2081]

This is great. This is solid country music that quite frankly sounds like a hit to my ears. This duet is far superior to the current Chris Young & Cassadee Pope one. It's a shame that label politics will most likely prevent this from being the decent hit it deserves to be. Heck, it would least be nice for this to even have a chance at radio.

[tim]

Front Row Seat remains one of my favorite albums that I'm still listening to quite frequently, and this song certainly always stood out as a potential single. I'm with trebor in hoping that "Ghosts" would've followed as the second single, though. I'm also somewhat surprised they didn't go with the more upbeat "While I'm Young," although I can still see that being released as a third single. This really is a great concept album from beginning to end.

[keelhauled]

"Live It While You Got It" would be another good choice for an upbeat single. Really you could put the worst song on the album out and it'd be a treat to hear at radio.

[sabre14]

Reviver Records' 1608 Promotion staff will be promoting "Wasn't That Drunk" to mainstream Country radio.

Josh Abbott Band has teamed with Reviver Label Services’ 1608 Promotion.

“If you take a look at what Josh Abbott Band has been able to do on their own – with their last two albums hitting the Top 10 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, you know that the fans really seem to register and identify with what they are doing musically. Taking that next step, and bringing their new radio single ‘Wasn’t That Drunk’ into the band’s story, is what we are going to do at Reviver,” said Reviver Label Services president David Ross.

The group’s new album, Front Row Seat, was released in November, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart.

Music Row

1608 is the new promotion label service that was launched by Reviver Records this year. Josh Abbott Band has inked a deal to have their songs promoted to radio through 1608.

[rsmatto]

What's interesting here is they didn't go,through Thirty Tigers, which distributed their album.

[Deleted]

Glad to see that Reviver's new 1608 Promotion team will be working this to radio...this means that "Wasn't That Drunk" could actually become a hit. There's no guarantee, but Reviver just saw a big breakthrough with LoCash's "I Love This Life", so they clearly have what it takes to work a song up the charts.

And this song is absolutely phenomenal, so I really hope it can be a sleeper hit. I don't have too much of Josh Abbott Band's music in my library, but I have enjoyed several songs from them ("I'll Sing About Mine" is particularly strong), and I downloaded "Wasn't That Drunk" as soon as I heard it. I love the lyrics, but the best part has to be that FIDDLE!

Also, it's great to see Carly Pearce's name again (she sounds phenomenal on this too, btw). Carly had a developmental record deal with Sony Nashville back in 2012 and 2013 (she mentions it in this 2012 article) but as far as I know Sony never released any of her music. I don't even think she was ever listed on the artist roster at the Sony website, either (although I did have her on the Sony roster in my Record Labels & Artist Rosters thread for a while), and apparently they decided to not move forward with her, and quietly parted ways, probably sometime in 2014. As far as I know, Carly was still in development at Sony in March 2014, but that's the last I heard of her affiliation with Sony.

Hopefully she lands a new record deal soon. She had a single called "Blame The Whiskey" that got airplay on SiriusXM's "The Highway" in late 2014 and 2015, and, according to the bio on her website, she recently signed a publishing deal with BMG Nashville, a booking deal with CAA Nashville, and is currently working on new music with hit producer, Busbee.

The 2nd to last paragraph of her bio mentions that she "recently recorded a duet with Josh Abbott Band for their upcoming studio release", so it seems that the info is fairly recent (likely summer of 2015).

Edit #1: It appears that they recently filmed a video for this song!

Edit #2: Here's some quotes from this great article from The Boot:

For the JAB, Front Row Seat‘s success is not simply about first-week sales, or even its sales to date, after nearly the first four months. Rather, the group is looking for long-term success on a national level and in a manner they’ve not previously achieved — and they firmly believe that this project will be the one that gets them there.

“We want this to be an album that continues to sell and continues to stream,” Abbott tells The Boot, noting that they’d like the record to be acquiring new fans even a year or two down the line. “… Our band is really focused on the long run.”

In addition to Abbott’s own marital troubles, the loss of the group’s major-label deal with Atlantic Records is, at least partially, responsible for that growth. The band’s stint with Atlantic “definitely had its good parts as well as its bad,” Abbott admits, but “there’s no hard feelings or anything” about the split.

“In a good sense, it opened our eyes to the national world, and it opened their eyes to ours …,” he explains: Label executives and radio stations took notice and realized “it was okay that we were from Texas, but we made music that worked across the country,” while the band sharpened their imaged and learned “how the radio game works, the dos and don’ts.”

But, “in the end, it won’t really matter,” Abbott muses. While the Josh Abbott Band recently signed with 1608 Promotion, Reviver Label Services’ new radio promotion division, “us releasing this album on our own was the way it needed to be done.”

While No. 1 and Top 10 albums are impressive and helpful in gaining a national audience, the band has yet to notch a Top 20 single — but they’re confident it will happen with the one-two punch of “Amnesia” and “Wasn’t That Drunk,” the latter of which is their current single from Front Row Seat.

In addition to earning the JAB national acclaim, “Wasn’t That Drunk” has the potential to help break up-and-comer Carly Pearce, who guests on the tune. The 25-year-old was the group’s No. 1 choice for the duet, “and she killed it,” Abbott gushes. He predicts big things for the singer-songwriter — sort of like when Kacey Musgraves, then relatively unknown, helped out on their 2011 single “Oh, Tonight.”

“We’ve been fortunate to work with some acts that just — we saw the potential in them early on …,” Abbott says of working with both Musgraves and Pearce. “I think [“Wasn’t That Drunk”] presents radio with a very unique ability to introduce two artists to the mainstream.”

[cufan7]

I remember hearing a demo of this a while ago and thinking it would be the perfect song to give Gloriana a #1 hit (sort of gives me "Kissed You (Good Night)" vibes). Great song and I think think JAB and Pearce sound great on it. Could be a sleeper hit.

[sabre14]

Carly Pearce's name is one of those names that has been really getting a ton of recognition the past year or two in Nashville and if 1608 can get this to at least the top 40, I definitely think she will get a record deal. She'll probably get one eventually anyway, but her involvement on a moderate hit would accelerate that.

Josh said in his interview with The Highway a few weeks back that he sought out Carly after hearing her perform at some establishment in Nashville and asked someone "who is that?, she's incredible." He then got in touch with her on social media and eventually they decided to sing on this song, "Wasn't That Drunk", which Josh said had interest from other artists.

[kw9461]

Feb 25, 2016 5:16:05 GMT -5 jhomes87 said:

And this song is absolutely phenomenal, so I really hope it can be a sleeper hit. I don't have too much of Josh Abbott Band's music in my library, but I have enjoyed several songs from them ("I'll Sing About Mine" is particularly strong), and I downloaded "Wasn't That Drunk" as soon as I heard it. I love the lyrics, but the best part has to be that FIDDLE!

[/quote]


I would highly, highly recommend picking up their new album. Terrific fiddles all over the record. I really like this song, and I wouldn't even rank it higher than 4th or 5th best on the album (which goes 16 deep, btw). Born To Break Your Heart, Amnesia, and I've Been Known are all fantastic songs (the latter features some of the best fiddles i've heard for a while), and i could really go on and on.

I'm thrilled this has a chance to make a dent outside of Texas. This song or Kisses We Steal seem like the best bets for radio play outside of Texas. I still can't believe for two full years at Warner, the only thing we got was a mediocre, watered down single like Hangin' Around.

[sabre14]

"Wasn't That Drunk" was sent officially sent to radio by 1608 Promotion this morning through Play MPe.



Impact date is March 21st. :)

[trebor]

EDIT : Lyric video now officially uploaded to YT/vevo

[musicofmyheart]

Heard this song once some time ago and I was hooked! So glad to see it has an official add date and am hoping that radio gives it a chance.

[sabre14]

1608 has put this up in Country Aircheck a few times already, including today's email:



I'm really hopeful this can pull in some decent adds on Monday and at least make the top 40, if not higher. I've had this song on repeat for a few weeks and Carly Pearce's inclusion was a stellar match for the song.

[sabre14]

"Wasn't That Drunk" got at least 14 adds on impact day this week.

[musicofmyheart]

Really pulling for this one! Hope it gets a bunch more adds today in addition to increasing radio airtime.

[sabre14]

"Wasn't That Drunk" got 5 adds this week (22 stations overall).

I think this one will chart but it remains to be seen if it can reach the top 40. It took Reviver a while to get "I Love This Life" going, so I'm sure 1608 will be working this one for a while.

[sabre14]

"Wasn't That Drunk" debuts at #60 on Billbosrd Airplay this week.

[sabre14]

Josh and Carly will be performing "Wasn't That Drunk" on Jimmy Kimmel Live on May 31st.

[gonecountry]

This song has grown on me a lot. First rate tune with a good simple story. Both voices harmonize nicely.

In a world where high quality songs get played on the radio, this and Aaron Watson's Bluebonnets would be hits.

[sabre14]

World Premiere of Music Video

What a great music video. Wow. They went all out on the cinematography and the treatment was spot on. Josh and his band dressed up and Carly looks absolutely gorgeous.

[sabre14]

Uploaded to YouTube: :)

[sabre14]

Sorry for another post but KPLX in Dallas recently added this one and it showed this week as "Wasn't That Drunk" jumped up 400k in audience and climbed to #56 on Billboard Airplay (#60 on Mediabase).

I could see this song being a slow grower to the top 40 but I don't see it doing more than that. Some big market stations will be a big help for this song though. WEPG in Chicago is the top spinner but they have allocated all of WTD's spins to overnight hours.

I hope it climbs as high as possible because this song is easily one of my very favorites over the past five years.

[musicofmyheart]

I see that this little gem is at #47 on Billboard's Hot Country chart today! Hoping that the programmers take notice & find room for this one in their rotations. It's too good of a song to not be played & heard. I'll continue to root for this one & hope good things happen.

[sabre14]

KKBQ in Houston and KSCS in Dallas added "Wasn't That Drunk" this week. There's only 33 monitored stations aboard this one so far but the stations 1608 is getting to add the song is money; the top markets spinning this song are Oklahoma City, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas (2x) and Houston (all comibed for 1.2 million in total Mediabase audience).

"Wasn't That Drunk" jumped up over 400k in audience, to #53 on Billboard Airplay and up 56 spins to #58 on Mediabase. If 1608 can keep getting a steady stream of adds over the next few weeks, I think this one could push for a top 40 placement.

[sabre14]

The big market stations are proving to be a vital key for this one as "Wasn't That Drunk" jumps up five more spots to #48 on Billboard Airplay (ten spot jumps over the past two weeks). It also got 2 more adds this week.

I really think this could crack the top 40 a little more with time. The big markets like Houston and Dallas is what I was hoping for and that luckily happened pretty quickly.