Rising Country singer-songwriter Jordan Rowe is signed to River House Artists and he just unleashed his rocky new single ‘Bad Case of the Good Ole Boy’.
With an album in the works and a fanbase that’s ever-growing thanks to the release of his recent single ‘More Me’, Rowe is an artist who is very much on an upwards trajectory right now. Having moved to Nashville in 2019, Rowe has been working hard at his craft banking material for release over the coming months.
I caught up with Jordan to discuss his new single, find out where he’s at with his album, and to talk about his return to touring…
Your single ‘Bad Case of the Good Ole Boy’ is your new single. Why did you decide to put it out as a single?
‘Bad Case of the Good Ole Boy’ was the actually an idea we got while we were writing another song that’s going to be on the album called ’10-4′. ‘Bad Case of the Good Ole Boy’ is a line from ’10-4′. While we were writing that song, when I threw out the line ‘Bad Case of the Good Ole Boy’ for that song, all three of us writers looked at each other in the room and were like, ‘that’s a whole song right there. We should write that title later’. A couple months after we wrote ’10-4′, we went back in and wrote ‘Bad Case of the Good Ole Boy’. We needed something really anthemic for the album and it’s just basically just this normal day in the life of a good ole boy. It’s a cocky little fun anthem that’s a great live song. We needed a show starter and I’ve been opening up my shows with that song, and it just fits that little slot perfect.
The song is such a contrast to your previous release ‘More Me’. Is it your intention leading up to this album that you showcase all sides of what you can do?
Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely the most rocky thing that I’ve done, the most heavy production and it shows a little different side than ‘More Me’, which was more the loving side. I’m excited for people to hear the edginess to. The record is all over the place. You’ve got stuff like ‘Bad Case of the Good Ole Boy’, which is super rocky and heavy, and then we’ve got songs on there that you’ll hear later like ‘Momma Ain’t Jesus’ or ‘The Good Ones’ to ‘Had a Ball’, which are very intimate lifey songs. It’s really all over the place as far as the sound goes and the content of the songs.
I love it when an album mixes things up and delivers lots of different styles and sounds. How far along are you with the album at this point?
We have the songs picked out already and we’ve recorded them all. We’re just in the process now of tweaking the mixes on a few of the last ones, and getting those mastered. It’s I’d say 95% done. We’re just waiting on a few more features that will be on there, to get there parts sang, and that’s really exciting. You’re gonna see some familiar names on there with other songs. I’m really, really excited about it.
Has the time afforded to us during the pandemic given you time to focus on getting this album right?
Yes, for sure. It was really a blessing in disguise from a writing standpoint because it gave so much time to really focus on the new music, and not everything else going on and being so busy. What I did was try to look at the upside of it. Obviously, it was a terrible thing that we couldn’t play live music but it did on the plus side give us a chance to write a lot more than we ever would have because that’s the only thing we could do. We just wrote a ton of songs and really took time, and made sure that when we could come back to it, that we would come back to it right.
You moved to Nashville in 2019. Was that a tough move to make?
For me, the toughest part was being away from my family. In South Georgia, where I’m from, it’s about seven hours from here and my whole family’s there. That was a tough spot for me but luckily I had moved almost four hours away from my hometown for college so I was used to the adjustment. What made the move easier on me then a lot of people, is I came up while I was still in college and I would intern at the label I’m with now, at the publishing company, in the summers and live with songwriters up here that I knew that were also from my home state. Doing that for two years allowed me to get in with a lot of people and meet a lot of the writers. I was starting to write songs with the same people I write with now, two years before I moved up officially so when I did move up, I already had like a ground floor network of people that I knew and could go in and just hit the ground running and get right to work.
As you mentioned, you’re now a part of Riverhouse Artists. What’s it like to be part of that family?
Lynn Oliver-Cline, the lady that owns the company, she makes it a priority that we feel like family. She took us on a retreat, where there were no expectations to write songs or anything. She just wanted us to go down there and bond with each other. I think it’s one of the best companies in town and they really care about all of us. I’ve known her for three or four years now, and I remember the first summer that I was up here, I ended up being in her house and her aunts were in town. I met them and I had hardly no friends in town yet. Her aunts were visiting in town and the power went out of the house and we stayed up playing Monopoly by candlelight with her aunts, the first time I ever met her. She just takes your right in like you’re part of the family. It’s been great. She takes care of us and everybody there is so talented. We saw that last week. We had a lot of the newer people down there with us and we just sat around the pool one night and just got our guitars out. We went around the circle passing the guitar and playing and it was crazy to see how much talent they have in that one company. I can’t say enough good things about her.
That must be inspiring to us an artist to be surrounded by all that talent. I recently spoke to Ray Fulcher, who I know is part of River House Artists too and you’ve written with…
Ry was one of my first friends in town. I actually lived with him for one of those summers that I would come between college. I think it was 2018, that summer before I moved up, and now I live with him again full-time. He’s been a great friend and a great help and mentor. Some of the first songs I ever wrote in town I wrote with him. As you know, he’s got a lot of Luke Combs cuts. I was just a student, I felt like, the first few times I was writing with him. I was just trying to really pay attention and keep up because his brain just goes so fast thinking of lyrics and stuff. I remember the first few times I wrote with him, I was pretty overwhelmed, at how fast he could come up with good lines. Writing with him and Drew Parker, another one that’s at River House, is a great writer that I wrote with early on. It threw me into the deep end so it made me have to bring out the best in me and hold my own in a room. They were great teachers and have been great friends ever since.
You mentioned earlier about touring and how that hasn’t been easy the past 12-18 months. You’ve started to get back on the road and played with Cody Johnson and Drew Parker recently. How’s that been?
It’s been a blast. Those shows were awesome. I’m great friends with Drew already so that was cool and I met Cody out there and he was one of the most genuine nice guys I’ve ever met. His whole crew treated us so nice and that was awesome. I wish I had more shows than him. As soon as those shows ended, I just got the news that I’m going out with Jon Pardi in July ao I’m super excited about that. That’ll be July 1st and 2nd in Oklahoma. I haven’t met Jon before. I’m just so excited to go out and make new friends and meet new fans, and just see what connects with people. By the time we’re going to be out on the road full time in the fall, I’ll have had 11 new songs out since we’ve gotten to play shows. It’s kinda crazy and scary to know that you’re going out and playing shows, and you’ve put 11 songs out that you haven’t gotten to play live yet. You don’t know how people are gonna react to them. You don’t know if they’re gonna know them and sing them back to you or not know them at all but it’s exciting.
Jordan Rowe’s single ‘Bad Case of the Good Ole Boy’ is out now to stream and download. Watch the video for the song below:
