Not many artists actually hail from Tennessee, but the scenic valleys and rolling hills of The Volunteer State are part of Dustin Lynch’s DNA. In this episode of On the Bus, Country Thunder CEO Troy Vollhoffer sits down with Dustin to discuss his journey from playing fraternity parties and weddings across the southeast to being the first country artist with a club residency at the Wynn in Las Vegas. Plus, stick around for our new segment, Thunder Strike, where Troy features upcoming festival performer Riley Green’s hit song “Damn Good Day to Leave” to give you a taste of what’s to come at Country Thunder in 2025.
Chapter 1: How did Dustin Lynch begin his music career?
like a mini Mardi Gras parade into the stage. And then we start the show, but it's a three hour set. It's a lot of fun. We try to do a theme every year. And this year's theme was getting nautical. So we played a bunch of yacht rock and had a good time with it. Yeah.
I wish I was there. Let's go back to like the beginning. I mean, very few artists are actually from Tennessee who, you know, you're from Tullahoma. Tell me about the beginning. Tell me about... When you started, you started playing guitar, then you gave it up for a bit and then came back around 16, I believe, and started playing guitar again.
And just elaborate on the beginnings of Dustin Lynch as an artist.
I fell in love with singing and really had this want to at...
age eight and um so you know i started singing in church and then school choir and chorus and stuff and then i got really into acapella music and was in an acapella quartet and one of my buddies that was in that group's dad was like why don't you learn how to play some instruments and actually be a band so like well that sounds cool i tried to start learning guitar giving it up for
dirt bikes and whatever else was fun at the time. When he said that, I was like, all right, I'll pick the guitar back up. I started learning and at the age of 15, was playing my first gig with some of those guys. It was like the butterflies and then overcoming those and seeing people sing along and dance. Our first show was for a senior picnic.
We're the younger high school kids playing for the seniors. That was a way to feel better about yourself in those tough high school years. We were all dating, you know, above us in class, which is unheard of. Oh yeah, absolutely. We started dating older girls and that becomes addicting, you know, the attention becomes addicting. That's what happens when you know how to play guitar.
That's it, yeah, and learning those songs and yeah, so the beginning for us was kind of just playing every chance we could at whatever fundraiser there was or tailgate or we kind of had a rotation, a steady gig down at the pavilion at our park that's next to the high school football field that we would play at.
and the dream was to get to nashville and you know continue to grow that high school band went at separate ways everybody went to different colleges the guitar player myself um kind of we were thinking we were headed to middle tennessee state he ended up going and not lasting even a whole whole freshman year he screwed it up i got a call to play golf
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Chapter 2: What was the turning point in Dustin Lynch's career?
Even when you got your own car and you're in college, you'd be like, I don't know where to drive in Nashville. It's very intimidating. The Bluebird was right there by me, and it felt safe. So I would go over there and hang out and really just try to learn the craft. It was in between the songs what I fell in love with, those stories the songwriters would say about, this is what inspired this song.
Even if I hadn't lived those things, it inspired me to think about, okay, what am I living right now? What could I write about? And then try to go home and and starting a song was easy, finishing a song was tough, and that was kind of the training that I needed to really get through and just those repetitions and still do. I think as songwriters, you always gotta sharpen the pen.
Just for our listeners, the Bluebird Cafe is an iconic room in Nashville that is primarily utilized for songwriters and it has been, it's historic. I mean, it's like the cathedral for songwriters, I would say.
It is. You know, they've done a great job at preserving what it was and kind of keeping it the same. And those traditions alive, I think that keeps it special. And that's why it's going to continue to be around for us.
So let's talk about when you got your record deal. The very first record, I mean, it went to number one. It was a great success. How did that come about?
Lots of hard years of being told no. I graduated college. At that time, I'd already started kind of growing my cover band business in the frat scene and sorority scene. And then that would turn into wedding receptions. And so we were traveling all over the Southeast playing those. I was making some good money in college, getting paid to go party at frat houses. It's like the best gig ever.
um and girls girls girls that's right and um so i knew that that was a good living but how do i get my original music you know better and to a level where people will pay attention on Music Row and give me a chance. I started knocking on doors and went to BMI because it seemed like the thing to do. Once you meet this person, they turn around to that person and start connecting the dots.
Then I started writing a little bit more original music and performing that in my frat shows. um in the greek life shows and uh out of nowhere i got a cold call from from a guy and he left me a voicemail i was i was at a day job at the time and um it was a manager of an artist that i recognized on this new label called big machine and valerie records and um
within two weeks i had a meeting in there and um they told me they're like you're not leaving this office to you we've got to offer you some sort of deal we're big fans behind that yep and john loba yeah great and that was that was flooring to me i didn't think that was going to happen at all so that kind of put me in a tailspin of like oh my god it's finally happening right just kind of like in the blink of an eye here we go and so i you know you go through all those deals and everything and john is who actually signed me and he ended up leaving that that label
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Chapter 3: How did Dustin Lynch transition to a successful recording career?
So I lost my champion. And I got to sit on the shelf for a couple years over there trying to figure out what to do. So you went over to Broken Bow at that point. Finally, John got me out of the Big Machine deal and I went to Broken Bow. And we'd already had Cowboys and Angels written and I couldn't get anybody excited about it over at Big Machine. But once I got to Broken Bow, they loved it.
And we kind of went in and started finishing out that first album around Cowboys and Angels being the anchor song. And yeah, like you said, it went out and we put that song out and it really did.
uh amazing things i didn't know how big it was or what it was doing at the time because i'd never done it but now that i know a little bit about the you know the struggles of the chart and the you know impact of a song has that song had and still has incredible impact it's still one of my most streamed songs to date
Let's talk about playing that song live right now. What's that, 10 years after? That was 2012, wasn't it?
Yeah, 12 years.
12 years ago. Still resonates, doesn't it?
Yeah, it's still a monster for us. It's still the song that people bring up the most in meet and greet. I think the song that couples come to see us play and they're counting down the minutes so they can have their dance together. It's been a song that's become a part of so many people's wedding day. and anniversaries or whatever brought them together. And yeah, that's special.
Not every song can be that. For us, it's Cowboys and Angels. That's fantastic.
So the second record, you got an amazing success. It went double platinum, I believe. Let's talk about that record.
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Chapter 4: What inspired Dustin Lynch's live performance style?
I mean, I saw your show live. I was totally blown away.
Thank you.
I think it's a great live show. It's got all the components in that show. So moving on to today. So let's talk about Dustin Lynch in 2025. Mm-hmm. Here we are getting ready for a big year, I'm assuming. We're ramping up. Tour starts in April.
Yeah, a lot of momentum right now.
Let's talk about that for a sec.
This is the biggest gap I've had of not touring. It seems like we've always kind of- Now you did New Year's Eve.
We did, yeah. Let's go back to New Year's Eve. Let's start on New Year's Eve. How did that go? And tell me how you got involved in New Year's Eve because that's a big impact. I mean, that's a-
international audience watching yeah um yeah so i got to host for my second year in a row times square yes and the ball dropped there with cbs and it is it's a huge stage i've always loved um hosting you know i've had experience on the carpets um and i've got to host some radio shows and um I don't know, it's something that's a new challenge for me, but also I love the banter in between songs.
I love working a crowd and just bringing some life and energy to an audience. And that's what that is for me. I got asked to do it. Cody Allen actually is who recommended me or requested me for ringing in 2024. And went up there and had a good time. And I was nervous because I hadn't been on a stage like that. I hadn't worked with...
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Chapter 5: What are Dustin Lynch's plans and projects for 2025?
And so, you know, with our big shows, there's time in between songs to tell a story, introduce a song or let a guy take a solo. In this show, it's all me. So it's a high impact show, but I love it. So that's a new type of music that, I'm now starting to write and curate a record around. So that's one of the projects I'll be releasing this year, probably in July.
But my main focus is gonna continue to be, I'm proud of being one of the top 10 most consumed artists last year on country radio. And I wanna continue that trend.
Your streams are 2.2 billion with a beat, right?
Mm-hmm.
congratulations thank you not a lot of artists who have that uh badge of uh honor i mean that's that's a very impressive number thank you yeah i i love um making music that stands the test of time that's always kind of been my goal since we put cowboys and angels out um is is making songs that stick around they're not just that that flash in the pan and um we've got mucky a handful of times at this point and i've had some songs that i think have stood the test time will continue to do so so that's my main focus i don't want to
I don't want to let anything really steer me away from what I'm here to do, and that's make awesome country music. But these new projects that we're doing are fun. I think my nightlife, my EDM, EDM for the lack of better terms, I guess is what they're starting to brand it, is going to bring in a whole new audience all over the world because it's so accessible.
Maybe sometimes it's like, I don't know if I like country music. This is blended in a world that I know they love and sounds they're used to hearing with a little bit more of a storytelling type of lyric. And so that's gonna be fun too. And I think we're gonna touch a lot of new ears this year all over the world with this format that we're kind of making up right now.
That's very exciting. Congratulations on that. I think you've seen country music go in so many different ways and I've been fortunate enough to see it where where everybody was country and everybody was a fan of everybody's. And now we kind of have segregation in that. I mean, I'm a Dustin Lynch fan or I'm a Wallen fan or I'm whoever else. And it seems like that's changing.
So you gotta fight for that piece of territory or real estate in the marketplace, right?
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Chapter 6: How did Dustin Lynch get involved with DJ sets in Las Vegas?
It's the songs that I find myself going back to, where I'll literally have an outburst in my truck and just fist pump.
So what is your process after you cut it or the demo of it? Then you drive around in your truck and spin it?
Yeah, I just live with it.
And I pay attention to what I come back to. Do you play it on different speaker systems just to make sure that the vibe is the same?
Yeah, I love being on the water. So a lot of my songs are tested on the water, on the boat. If we're out drinking or surfing or whatever it is. And that's where I can really, if I narrow it down to a group of songs, I'll sprinkle in some originals throughout our day with a group of friends, even strangers, of demos. I like me not to be singing them so people don't realize what it is.
And sometimes people will just ask about it.
Whose song is that?
Yeah, what is that? Can we hear that again? What was that? Most of the time they don't, and that's fine. That's kind of my process of going, okay, because in the real world, people aren't gonna know who's singing it at first and they don't have to ask about it again. But if that happens organically, you have something special. And so that's been the moments where it seems like,
The cream rises to the top always. And songs just, for whatever reason, raise attention and raise their hand. And, and it's kind of undeniable what, what's going to be next level.
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