Ronnie Dunn.Photo: Dustin Haney
Ronnie Dunn.
Well, sort of.
“Itwasthe same timing, but itwasn’tthe catalyst,” he explains of the song that serves as the first single off his fifth solo album,100 Proof Neon,due out this summer. “It’s funny. We wrote an entire album, and I took it home and played it for my wife and she was like, ‘Every other song is “neon”’ and she told me I can’t do that,” Dunn says with a laugh. “I told her actually I can because I love the music and the beer joints and the bars and I miss that world, musically.”
So, in a way, “Broken Neon Hearts” takes listeners back to that world.
“It all comes from back in the ’80s and ’90s playing bars and clubs and trying to capture that vibe,” says Dunn, just days before it was announced that Brooks & Dunn had been nominated for duo of the year at the upcoming ACM Awards in March. “Back then, in places like Texas and Oklahoma — if you didn’t get the crowd up and dancing, then they didn’t drink, and you didn’t have a job after that.”
“He came in with the idea for the chorus, the hook and a half of a verse,” Dunn remembers. “And I said, ‘Gosh, this is worth taking on.'”
But it certainly turned out to be somewhat of a process to get the song where Dunn wanted to take it.
“With a new artist, I get to play coach,” Dunn says with a slight chuckle of the song he snagged co-writing credits on alongside Perkins and fellow songwriter Matt Willis. “I get to be kind of the bad guy, you know? So, I did go back and, and told Thomas that he had to work on the second verse, and he came back with that whole Keith Whitley reference. I knew right then and there that his head was in a place it should be. We sat and knocked it out and it set the tone for the rest of the record.”
“I know everyone says we’re not getting paid enough or whatever, but the day is going to come sooner than later when streaming is going to be the 500-pound gorilla in the room…. heck it already is,” explains Dunn. “I just like the idea of being able to have the freedom to go in and cut a record whenever I feel like it. It’s like the oil business in Oklahoma. There’s oil in the ground, so I’m going to punch as many holes in that ground as I can. Radio is no longer the only outlet out there and music is no longer a depleting asset. So, this is a good time to be investing, you know?”
Undoubtedly, Dunn’s voice is going to be heard in many ways in the coming years.
“I’ve always felt like my voice is too thin to be like a George Jones or a [Merle] Haggard,” he concludes. “So, it’s my big challenge to nail a hardcore country song. This whole project was an attempt to do that.”
source: people.com
