Interview With Country Star Russell Dickerson

Russell Dickerson is one of country’s hottest acts right now. So far he has had more than 30 million streams online, made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, and just got off touring with Thomas Rhett and Kelsea Ballerini, all before his debut album.

Born and raised in Tennessee, he is no stranger to music. With parents that are both musicians and having attended Belmont University, known for it’s musical talents, it’s no surprise that country music is in his blood.

To coincide with the release of his upcoming album, we got to speak to the country star earlier in the week about the release, touring, his success so far and his future plans.

Welcome to CelebMix! So straight off, congratulations on all of the success that you have achieved over this past year. The success of “Yours” has been incredible – how did that song come about?

It’s been a journey for sure. I mean the song came out almost 2 years ago and its just cool to keep the faith alive and to believe in a song so much and do whatever it takes in order to make good things happen. 

I feel like it’s taken on a new persona – it’s also impacted so many weddings, how does that feel?

It’s crazy to me – I mean, it didn’t even cross our minds when we were writing – it never crossed our minds like “what would a bride want to hear for her first dance?”. We just wrote from the heart and wrote an honest love song and its just so cool to see how many people connect with that and I think what sets it apart from other love songs is the fact that it’s actually me admitting you know that “you make me better than I was before” and im not afraid to admit that. I think that’s why its doing so well is due to how it’s connected with so many people because sometimes its hard to put those feelings into words. 

Yours is off your upcoming album due out 13th October – are you ready for it to be released? 

Oh yeah, so we recorded the album probably end of last year, going into Christmas, so I’ve been sitting on these songs and listening to them over and over and I’m just ready for the world to hear these. You know, everybody has a great album and it’s just like I get it now, I think this is some of the best work I’ve compiled and I think it’s going to shake up the industry a little bit. I’m very excited. 

How was the writing process? Do you have a solid group of people you write with or do you mix it up?

Both but the cool thing with the writing is how it started with Casey Brown and Parker. I wrote most of the album with those two people – so to have them has changed my career honestly. Once we got together, as we friends first at college, it was just magic. Yours was the second song we ever wrote together and so once we had that were were like “I think we have something going on here” and so that was a major turning point in my career in terms of writing songs with people that I knew rather than going into random writing sessions with some new guy and writing about my feelings. 

Do you have a favourite song off the new album?

Billions is one of my favourites because it really kind of wraps up my personality. I think it’s just over the top, completely outrageous, and crazy. I feel like I really wrapped up my personality well and for that to be incorporated into such a fun song – I think it’s going to be a big song, it’s so cool. 

In terms of touring, you just got off touring with Thomas Rhett and Kelsea Ballerini, how was that? Did they give any advice before going on? 

We always end up talking at the end of the night and it’s just cool to hear his outtake on how the show went and how I thought it went with the crowd, and yeah it was just really cool to tour with one of my best friends and to be able to hang out all the time. It was a really special time to be able to tour with him. It’s crazy to think that we’re friends and we got to tour the US together and play shows and just hang out.

Comparing to the US, you just headlined Nashville Meets London – obviously, the UK isn’t extremely into country music as of yet but it is slowly getting bigger – does it feel good to be able to contribute your music to the UK?

I loved that show. I want to be a pioneer for this genre and to take it to as many people as possible.  A lot of people shun, ‘oh that’s not country’ but I just don’t associate myself with close minded people. If people get into country music, and if they start digging deeper, they’re obviously going to find the typical country scene but then there’s so much more to it than that. I just want as many people hooked on the genre and I think that Florida Georgia Line and Thomas Rhett, and being able to tour with them, are doing the same thing pioneering for the genre to expand and to make it available for the masses. 

Are there any major differences between UK fans and US fans?

Oh yeah, this is a cool thing. So like soccer isn’t big in America, or football as you call it, so it’s just cool to see how people react to soccer games, the chants and how they get super into the game and I feel like that translates on to my show big time. They were there, they were engaged and weren’t on their phones the whole time. Not a lot of people have heard of me, much less my unreleased songs but I would give them a little chant and the song would then be over but they’d just keep chanting over and over. I was like oh my god, this doesn’t happen in America honestly, everybody in London was just digging it so passionately and it was so awesome. 

Any upcoming headline tours for the UK after album release date?

Yeah we’re coming back! I don’t know when it has all been confirmed yet but I would love to be back soon. Everyone talks about C2C, like “you have to be there for the C2C’, so yeah I’d love to. We’re working on it. 

 Finally, what’s next? What does the rest of 2017 hold and 2018?

The rest of the year for us is focusing on the album, getting that as massive as possible. Album and tour. Doing a lot of radios and really just bumping up our game there and really trying to expand. This is our first introduction to the world and so we’re just trying to make it last as long as possible. It doesn’t slow down for sure, it just picks up. December 8th is when we’re done I think, so we’re still going hard out here and I couldn’t be more excited.

Check out his latest EP below and thank you once again Russell for his time!. ‘Yours’ is out October 13th.

Make sure to Tweet us at @CelebMix for your reactions!

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