Simon RushworthAs Restless Road return to the UK for their C2C debut and a headline show at London’s Lafayette, it’s time to meet the band that topped Rushonrock’s Best Country Albums Of 2023 list with debut Last Rodeo. Editor Simon Rushworth caught up with Colton Pack, Garrett Nichols and Zach Beeken in Nashville.
Rushonrock: What’s your perception of the UK country music scene?
Restless Road: We went over for the first time with Kane Brown and when you go to another country you don’t really know what to expect. There are no expectations because you have no idea! But we often talk tour buddies about this — a friend of ours opened up for Luke Combs in the UK — and we all say the same: it’s a completely different crowd and a completely different atmosphere. In the US it’s all about the production and the spectacle — that’s what people want. But in the UK people really like listening to the music! That’s so refreshing as an artist. You play a show in the UK and you can hear a pin drop if you’re playing a slow song. In the US people still talk over your songs — even if it’s a slower one. It doesn’t matter to us because it’s what we’re used to. Having said that, we felt so appreciated last time out in the UK. It’s super exciting to go back.
Rushonrock: How important are your songs when it comes to connecting with an audience?
Restless Road: I think we’ll always strive lyrically to have something really strong. I don’t know, for us, I think sometimes you don’t always want to think about what’s the most relatable to the audience. Go down that road and the danger is that you end up writing something that’s not authentic — almost plain. So with the debut album we really tried to focus on ourselves and what we were really going through. If you can write from some place that’s real for you then I think that will always translate best to other people.
Rushonrock: How does the songwriting dynamic work within the band?
Restless Road: Ever since we’ve really been rocking, we all typically ride together and try to get in the same room as much as we can. But the inspiration can come from anywhere. A lot of times, we’ll be watching TV, or someone will see a sign or hear something that somebody said and that will be the start of a song. Each one of us grew up in different places and we have different backgrounds. Our music tastes are very different. It’s really cool that we all bring something different to the table and that generates a lot of inspiration. There are so many times when somebody will say ‘Hey, I heard somebody say this the other day — what if we wrote a song about it?’. We all put our own spin on it. It’s been so cool to write with people that you’re so close to. It gives our music a fresh perspective.
Rushonrock: Country music is so collaborative that you’re always writing beyond the group — do you enjoy broadening your horizons?
Restless Road: Definitely. We realise how valuable it is to have all the songwriters here in Nashville on our team. We’ve lived in the town, collectively, for 10 years, and so we’ve met scores of songwriters and written hundreds of songs. We’re just so blessed to have these people in our corner because they could have stopped writing with us five years ago when things just weren’t happening for the band. But now that things are happening for Restless Road it’s just such a blessing to have those songs and those songwriting sessions behind us. The people we collaborate are geniuses. We don’t ever want to be that stubborn band that insists it’s only going to record stuff written within the group. We’re on a mission to put on the best show possible and to connect with as many people as possible. Sometimes that means someone else might write a song that’s super amazing and you’ve got to decide whether you’re going to be the voice that helps share that special song with the world. Our whole motto is ‘the best song wins’. Sometimes that’s one of our songs, which is great. And sometimes it’s not — there are plenty of songs on Last Rodeo that we didn’t even write at all. It’s fun to put a Restless Road spin on someone else’s song.
Rushonrock: Do you tend to gravitate towards trusted writers the more time you spend in Music City?
Restless Road: It can go both ways. We have a really, really good team around us. We feel like the longer you work with somebody, the more that they kind of know who you are and what you want to do. They recognise the people who would be a good fit for Restless Road. Our publishing company is great at pushing us to explore our creative side when it comes to songwriting and they’ll pair us up with all sorts of people to do that. They’ll put us in a room with someone we’ve never met but make sure it’s someone they trust and who they’ve worked with before. That tends to happen quite a bit here in Nashville. You write with a lot of people you’ve never met before but you might ened up writing with them again. And then there’s a lot of people you have worked with before who you keep coming back to because you know it works. The whole goal of Nashville is to put people together to create something special and every so often a camp is created. That’s what we call it over here. A great example is Luke Combs — he’s got Drew Parker, James McNair and Ray Fulcher and it’s pretty unbelievable when you look at the songs that camp’s written together. Every artists in town is striving to find their own people. When you do that you can create magic over and over again. It’s not easy but if you achieve it then it’s like lightning in a bottle.
Rushonrock: People have stuck with the band through thick and thin but does this feel like a second chance?
Restless Road: Oh yeah, we’re so grateful. We’ve been in a band for 10 years now and we’ve done that whole 10-year town thing now. Looking back, there were a lot of moments where we felt the dream had fallen through. We had different groups of people around us but it was hard to find that ‘camp’ we were talking about. There were lots of different people in our corner at different times but things definitely changed when we signed with Sony, Kane and our current management. It was the first time everything started clicking. Having been through all of that, our goal is just to work as hard as possible. We have big ambitions and we want to be the biggest country music band in the world. We’re getting closer but we’re definitely not there yet! We’ve got a lot of work to do.
Rushonrock: What was the lowest point?
Restless Road: We’ve all, individually, had really low points. Back in 2018 — five years into the Restless Road story — we were pretty down. We’d been on a massive TV show and had a taste of the limelight and what success might feel like. Then the show ended and things didn’t go our way. We went down a lot of rabbit holes and experienced a lot of broken promises. When you’re younger your decision-making skills aren’t always the best and you can feel a little desperate. You just want help. You want people to guide you. And for the most part people tried to do that but we found ourselves in a place in 2018 where we’d signed horrible paperwork and done horrible deals. At that age we just didn’t realise how restrictive things could get.
Rushonrock: How bad did it get?
Restless Road: The business side of things completely messed up the creativity. It almost blew up the whole band. It prevented good things from happening and we reached a point where we felt absolutely everything to do with restless Road was out of our hands. That was a frightening place to be. We weren’t in control of our own career and we had no say in our own future. That was a really deflating feeling. But when Kane entered the picture we’d got out of all of those deals, found jobs working in bars and restaurants and got ourselves into a position where we could hit reset. We were trying to find our footing and work out where to go next. And when Kane gave us the opportunity to work together again he was the first person who encouraged us to do things the way that we wanted to do things. He’s been so supportive and protective of our careers ever since.
Rushonrock: Did the lows provide invaluable learning?
Restless Road: It’s always interesting when you think about your lowest points in life. Normally you wish things would have panned out differently but in our case I’m glad they didn’t. We wouldn’t be where we are today and Restless Road would have looked completely different. It would be a completely different landscape — different management, different label. We probably wouldn’t even be here. When you go and look back then you realise that everything happens exactly how it’s supposed to. Everything falls into place just how it’s meant to. And that’s what we had to tell ourselves — we joke about this but we always say that we have this curse that follows us every few years. It’s something crazy that happens.
Rushonrock: How do you mean?
Restless Road: When we finally got back on an even keel with Kane’s support — found a label and got a deal — Covid hit. It felt like it was just one thing after another. And the thing is, there’s always going to be stuff like that to challenge you but it’s how you respond to those situations. That’s what’s really important about having a great team around you. That team can help you to respond in the best way possible to those adverse situations and be able to turn something that may not necessarily be a great thing into something that turns out to be unbelievable for you.
Rushonrock: Is patience now a virtue where Restless Road is concerned?
Restless Road: We heard this quote ‘The man who loves walking will walk further than the man who loves the destination’. That really resonates with us. We’ve had 10 years of learning that the hard way. When you’re in this town, when you’re in the music business, you’re bumping shoulders with people, even at our label, who’ve been on the same journey. We might walk around the corner and see Luke Combs or someone — you see all of these amazing people who are doing all these things that you wish you could do but you’re not there yet even though you work with the same people. It’s hard to not fall into comparison traps and things like that. That’s one of the most dangerous things that can happen in this world that we’re in because it’s such a competitive environment. This person’s hot this week and then that person is hot the week after. You have to hang in there and ride the highs as well as the lows. Success is not just a straight line. It’s like a whole squiggly-ass thing that I don’t know if you can even imagine. That’s what it feels like. One of the best parts about being in a group is that we all have each other to lean on during those moments of self- doubt.
Rushonrock: How much of a positive influence has Kane been on the band?
Restless Road: Where do we even start? Two of us were on The X Factor back in 2013 and that’s where we started the band. It’s where we met Kane for the very first time. And we were all individual artists and didn’t have anything going for any of us. It was long before Kane blew up on social media and became the superstar that he is today. We were all asked to be in this band and we all said yes — apart from Kane. He said he didn’t want to be in a band. He went on his way but we always stayed close with him. When you were on the show, the producers pitted us against each other and made us think we were all on the way out. That situation actually meant that we all became pretty close. So we stayed in touch with Kane and then in 2019 he hit us up and he said ‘I’m at a point in my career where I can finally sign an artist and I remember how great you guys are and you all deserve a shot’. So that’s what he did.
Above: Rushonrock editor Simon Rushworth caught up with Restless Road at Sony Nashville’s HQ
Rushonrock: How does Kane measure up as a mentor?
Restless Road: It’s been really cool learning the tricks of the trade but at the end of the day he’s just a really good person. We hang with Kane outside of music and he’s a really great friend. He’s always been somebody who’s given us good advice on our careers and our personal lives. It’s just nice to have somebody like that — with such a great career behind him — who is so honest. He’ll tell us the things that he did back in the day and, with hindsight, suggest we do things differently. He champions our cause and helps us to make the right decisions. He would give us the shirt off his back.
Rushonrock: How proud are you of how far this band’s come and of the record you’ve made?
We’re extremely proud of Last Rodeo. It took 10 years to make it and to finally be where we are feels amazing. The reaction to the record has been unbelievable and seeing how people have connected with the music is amazing. When you’re putting together your record you think you know which songs will do well but it’s clear we don’t have any idea! It’s been really cool to see how fans take hold of certain songs for different reasons. This really does feel like a whole new chapter for Restless Road. 2024 is going to be another really exciting year and nothing beats seeing people singing back the songs you’ve been working on for years. We poured our heart and souls into Last Rodeo, really buckled down and wrote from a place that we’d never written from before.
Check out Rushonrock’s Best Country Albums of 2023 here