Mitchell Tenpenny is a man right at the prime of life! Armed with new album ‘This is the Heavy’, he’s having number one hits, sell out tours and he’s on the cusp of a first visit to Europe to play, amongst other shows, the iconic C2C festival in London, Dublin and Glasgow. Newly married to fellow singer, Meghan Patrick, life is good for this proud Nashvillian right now. It was a pleasure to talk to him all about it.
Thanks for giving us your time today, it’s lovely to speak to you.
Of course, brother! Thank you too.
We’re very excited about seeing you over here in the UK for the C2C festival.
Oh, man, me too. It’s so close now, I can’t wait.
You were meant to be on the bill in 2020 as the pandemic shut the festival down at the last minute. I’ve talked to artists like Jordan Davis who got off their plane in London and got right back on another plane to Nashville. What was your situation?
We were in the exact same situation as Jordan. We were on the plane, about four hours in when the decision was made to cancel the festival. So, we had to land, get our bags at the airport in London and turn right round again and go home!
So me, Jordan Davis and the Luke Combs camp all had to come right back home again.
Is Meghan coming with you or is it purely a work trip? (Mitchell got married to Canadian Country artist Meghan Patrick last year)
(Chuckling) No, it’s just me this time. We have a lot to do in that we are touring the UK, Germany, Netherlands and then onto Australia! It’s going to be a busy month.
You and Morgan Evans are teaming up for the ‘Day Drunk Me’ tour. What a great name for the shows.
We are! The title was Morgan’s idea. He sent that as a joke to the text group we are in and I was, like, ‘That’s perfect, man!’ I’m looking forward to having a beer with him, he’s such a good dude.
You are out on tour at the moment in the USA – how have the shows been going?
They have been so awesome, overwhelmingly good, it’s been such a blessing. We’ve got two more shows to do before we head over to see y’all. I’ve been over the moon with how well the shows have gone.
How do you approach making a set list for your live shows. Do you try and please the fans with hits, try and play songs you want to play or a little of both?
I’ve always been the guy that wants to play the popular songs, for sure. I hate going to a concert and the artist doesn’t play their hits, you know? Play the hits and then the songs you’re trying to push from your new record.
I look at the numbers on the songs that are resonating online and on streaming platforms too and then every now and again we will throw in something for us. We have a little microphone on stage that means we can all talk to each other and sometimes I’ll throw a curveball in the mix as well.
Have you got a favourite live song that you like to perform right now?
We’ve got a few. Right now my favourite is the new single, ‘We Got History’. Everyone’s really onboard with that one and are screaming it back to us up there on stage. It’s a lot of fun.
In the past couple of months I’ve interviewed both Jelly Roll and ERNEST, who are both proud Nashvillians, like yourself. It feels like it’s a good time to be a writer or artist from Nashville right now, there’s a little group of hometown artists forming – do you feel that?
Man, me and ERNEST have known each other since we were kids and I couldn’t be more proud of the success he’s having right now. We actually signed up as a duo together right at the beginning of our careers! Years and years ago.
Jelly Roll has always been a great mentor for us in terms of how to do things your own way. We grew up in a Nashville that was a little different to what it is now, it wasn’t as crazy – it’s grown so much in the last decade or so but we are proud Nashvillians for sure.
If you had a rap battle with ERNEST, who would win?
(laughing) He would probably get me on that one.
‘This is the Heavy’ is a monster of an album, both in terms of tracks and sonics. Did you ever think about cutting it down from 20 songs or was it always going to be huge?
It was originally going to be about 12 songs long but I just kept writing songs every day and we generated so much music that I kept adding to it. It had been 2-3 years since I put out a record and I just kept calling the label to say, ‘Hey, can I add two more?’ (laughing)
It got to 16 and I was, like, ‘I need two more’ and then when it got to 19 I decided it needed to be 20 or my brain just wouldn’t work with a weird number like that! (laughing)
There were songs that I just couldn’t not have on there, you know?
How many did you leave off?
A lot! Hundreds! (laughing) We had so many songs. We’ve already started writing for the next record! Right now, we can get more music out there than we could have traditionally done a few years ago so records are getting longer but then people want more content in this singles-driven world and so if we’ve got it, we’re gonna give it you!
What’s your favourite song on ‘This is the Heavy’ that you might not have played live yet or isn’t getting as much of the attention as tracks like ‘We Got Histroy’?
We do actually play my favourite song in our live set. It’s ‘That’s How She Goes’, the last song on the record. That song is kinda the song that got me and ERNEST our publishing deals. Keith Urban had it on hold for a while and then it didn’t make his record. It went out to a couple of other artists but never made it with them so I was excited to get the song back and put the one that started it all for me out on my own record!
I put it in as the last track to represent a kind of full-circle moment for me and my career.
I love the vibe and energy of ‘Good Place’. It feels like it would be a great concert opener.
Well, that’s exactly what we open our shows with! (laughing) There you go.
When you write a song have you got half a mind on the live shows or is it just always a case of ‘best song wins’ when it comes to sound and structure?
Sometimes we do, yeah. Especially when it comes to writing a chorus. When I first started writing I didn’t but now that I’ve played a whole load of shows and been out on the road and seen what works for us I definitely sometimes think, ‘This would be great if it had a chant here,’ or ‘the fans could sing this bit back to us,’ you know?
You do start to change the way you write a little bit after playing years and years of shows.
Did the record company try and silence or edit your potty-mouth on the chorus of ‘More Than Whiskey Does’ and is there a radio edit of it recorded somewhere?
We haven’t done an edit yet but if it ever goes to radio I guess we would need to. (laughing)
The label have been really good with just letting me be who I am. I don’t have the cleverest vocabulary! (laughing) I just like to write it and say it how it is, how it sounds in real life.
I wouldn’t say, ‘This girl has got me all messed up’, or ‘screwed up’, it would be the F-word for sure, man.
I like to write how I would talk in a conversation with friends and Sony have been really good in letting me do that.
It’s not like I swear all the time in my songs, it’s just an impact thing to use when the time and the meaning calls for it. Using the F-word is a stronger feeling and exactly what that song needed to have. I wouldn’t be doing the song justice if I didn’t give it the right power and meaning.
‘Happy and I Hate It’ as got a kind of 90s College Rock sound to it. What were the inspirations behind that one?
(Laughing) Exactly that, man. I wanted a cool guitar tone on that song and I miss playing that kind of music sometimes. I used to be in bands like that back in the day. We were just having a bit of fun on that song and trying to keep things a bit more light-hearted.
If you listen to the bridge it actually says that I realise that I could never make her happy and I hate it, it turns the meaning of the song around.
That song has been really fun to play live too, everyone has just been going at it!
You never know which songs are going to work or take off and that one has definitely carved out a little life of its own, which has been pretty neat to see.
I know you are going out with Jason Aldean into the arenas later on in the year and I guess you need bigger songs for those type of venues?
Yeah. We have the three number ones and a couple of gold records so that will go some of the way towards filling our 50 minute set. So people will hopefully know or already have listened to us before then. We’ll throw in some fun ones too, like ‘Happy and I Hate It’ which you can instantly sing along to by the second chorus and so it should be a good set.
A lot of the themes on the album revolve around late twenties, early thirties relationships, breakups and growing up. Now that you are a married man, are you going to be writing about other things?
(laughing) I’ll always be drawn to heartbreak, man! That’s kinda just what a Country music songwriter lives with, right? I have been writing some new stuff that I’m not necessarily living through right now. I like to reflect on things that happened to me and things that might happen in the future, so it’s very rare that I write about things that are going on right now.
I also like to just make something up. A lot of my songs are not biographical or historical things that happened to me, they are just stories about life and people, that’s where I find the fun in writing.
Have you ever written or recorded a song on any of your projects that you felt deserved more acclaim or didn’t get the attention it deserved? For me, I absolutely love ‘Can’t Go to Church’ which I felt should have been huge for you.
Man, thank you. That song is probably the one that I would have said to be honest. We got a good push on Sirius XM for that song but other than that it just kinda went away. I loved that song and people still ask for it all the time today – particularly and things like VIP events and meet & greets.Â
I love the writing style of that song and it was a great one to sing so I would agree with you on that one, for sure. A songwriter I respect once said to me that you will be buried with your best songs and you never which ones are going to work and which aren’t, that cuts me so deep, man.
Your brother, Rafe, is following in your footsteps. Signed up as a writer with ERNEST’s publishing company and a bassist in your band. Are you a mentor to him or does he ignore everything that his older brother has to say!
Me and ERNEST got to sign my brother! That’s so cool, right? We went into a joint venture with Big Loud and I couldn’t be more proud of Rafe. Him and ERNEST are the same age and were in the same grade at school.
Growing up, because I was a little older, I was the one saving up the money for equipment and studio time and they were the ones coming in and messing it all up! (laughing) I was only talking to ERNEST a couple of days ago and telling him how proud of them I was and how glad I am that they did come in and mess everything up, it gave us a fun environment to walk into everyday.
You must get asked this all the time. When are you and Meghan going to do a duet together then?
(laughing) At some point we definitely will, for sure. We had one on the Christmas record but we’re travelling so much for work when we are at home we just kinda hang out with the dogs and chill. I write everyday with other people but we will do something together at some point.
I love Meghan’s voice and her style: It’s fun to sing with her in the car on long journeys so we just need to turn that into something more formal, right?
We can’t wait to see you in London, Dublin and Glasgow very soon! Safe travels, defeat the jet-lag and we’ll see you very soon.
Absolutely, man, looking forward to it!
You can catch Mitchell Tenpenny in the UK by grabbing a ticket to the C2C festival right here
