With new album ‘Black Bandana' now out in the world we talk to Corey Kent about the project, his inspirations and his passion for music in general. You can find out review of ‘Black Bandana' right here.
Hailing from Bixby, Oklahoma, and now based in Dallas, this Sony Music Nashville artist has spent over 15 years navigating the highs and lows of his career without ever losing hope. Kent's journey has been marked by resilience, from early struggles and setbacks, including a lost publishing deal during the pandemic, to working on a paving crew in Texas to make ends meet. Kent's signature black bandana, originally a practical accessory for motorcycle rides, has become a symbol of his unwavering belief in himself.
As he balances life on his Texas ranch with his roles as a husband and father, his sophomore album, ‘Black Bandana,' stands as a rallying cry for those who share his independent spirit, proving that success is possible when you refuse to give up. We were thrilled to catch up with him to talk all about it.
Thank you for your time today, Corey, we appreciate you taking time out of a tour day to speak to us.
Thank you, I'm out in California right now and the weather is amazing!
What a fantastic listen ‘Black Bandana' is. Have you been pleased with the reception to it so far?
Absolutely! The roll out for the record was incredible. You hope that it is going to be received well by the industry because if that goes well, you will see it in a lot of different places, right? It was cool to see it on billboards and playlists but then it is up to the general public to respond to the music. Last night was night 1 of the Black Bandana tour out here in California wine country, which is about as far away as you can get from where I am from in Oklahoma! (laughing) These songs haven't been out long but last night the fans were singing along to them, not just the radio songs but the album cuts as well. Seeing that response made me feel like we have something special with this record.
Have you got a feel for which songs are resonating on the streaming platforms or is it still a little bit too soon?
You know, it's still too soon to say which ones are going to be the fan-driven hits. We get a bit of a say regarding which ones we want to prop up and put in the spotlight and which ones we think the fans will like the most. Those songs will get more opportunity out of the gate – ‘Damned Good Country Song' is one of those, ‘Rust' too. ‘This Heart,' got a spotlight moment and the song with Lauren Alaina, ‘Now or Never' seems to be blowing up a little right now too. It still remains to be seen which songs will be fan-driven though, who's to say that two months down the line the biggest song on the record will be one that we haven't given the spotlight to as yet?
The title track would slay on radio. It's the centre point of the album in terms of both meaning and sonics. When did the term ‘Black Bandana' first start to mean something to you and your crew?
That's a great question. I would say that it is really in this last year that it took on a real symbolic meaning. It's always been there, I've had the same bandana that I wear since middle or high school. There are a lot of people that ask if they can have the bandana and I have to say no, I've had it for that long!! (laughing) It's been with me through a lot of life and through my story, like having to work at the paving company when the world shut down – it's been a rollercoaster to get to this point.
In this last year we were able to put some words to the journey that I've been on. There was a moment when me and my co-writers all had the light switch go on at the same time, you know? I asked the question ‘what is the exact opposite of the black bandana?' and there was this ‘Ah Ha' moment in the room where we realised it was a white flag. Hanging in, fighting back and being the last man standing, that became synonymous with the concept of the black bandana. We now have a symbol that other people can identify with and latch onto that makes them understand us better but also makes them realise we are just like them too. It's a rallying cry and a mentality. There's more of us than you think, it's more than just a song.
I'm a sucker for three-part Country music story telling so it will be no surprise to you to learn that I really love ‘Never Ready.' Tell me about that song.
I wrote that song at our ranch in Texas with some friends of mine. While writing in Texas I get to be with my family. It's inspiring getting to write songs right where you do life. My kids are there, my wife is there and we're writing songs. It was great for my co-writers to see what my life looks like and get to spend time with us because I'm the only one of that group that has children as yet.
The first two verses are just the details of my life and very personal to me. I didn't have to think that hard about those lines! (laughing) They weren't tough things to write about. Then we got to the third verse and I didn't know where to take the song. Both of my parents are still alive at this point, which is an important detail I feel like I should add in at this point! A lot of people assume, because of that third verse that they are not. What is great about songwriting is that you get to pull from everyone in the room at the time and one of my co-writers lost his dad and his my age, life took his dad too soon, so we pulled the experience in from him to round out the journey of the song.
We just played Red Rocks in Colorado, which is one of the coolest venues you can play, anywhere in the world and my buddy Austin, who I wrote that song with, got to come up on stage and play ‘Never Ready' with us. What an amazing moment that was, man.
You've mentioned that ‘Now or Never' is blowing up some right now. That was written by Ryan Hurd who we are big fans of here at Entertainment Focus. How did that song find its way to you?
One of the first songs I ever put out back in 2019 was a song called ‘Gold' and that was written by Ryan. I loved that song, I've always been a fan of his even though we didn't know each other. I remember I saw him at this place in Nashville called The Belcourt Taps, a little tiny bar with about 100 people in. He was probably on his first publishing deal at this point and he was incredible.
Fast forward, I get ‘Gold' sent to me by my publisher and we had some success with that so my publisher said why don't you start writing with Ryan? So we do!! (laughing) We've become friends to the point now where it was Ryan that texted me ‘Now or Never' and said that he thought it would fit perfectly on my album. It's still kinda surreal to me, man, because I'm now working with a lot of the people that I've grown up admiring! It's humbling and it's cool and I've learned a lot about writing from working with guys like Ryan.
‘Rust' was written alongside Jacob Davis so I need to ask you this – was there any danger of Jordan Davis getting his hands on that before you?
(laughing) Yeah! There always is when Jacob is involved! (laughing) I've known Jordan since I was 16 years old and I'm 30 now, so that's a long time! I remember writing with Jordan at his house in Nashville when I didn't even know that he wanted to be an artist, I had no idea! I wanted to be an artist and I'd hit him up for the write. He had this big beard, he was wearing Wrangler boot cut jeans and flip flops! (laughing) I was, like, ‘This is the strangest Louisiana boy I've ever met,' you know? (laughing) We wrote some fun songs together and had fun writing them. Both Davis boys are really great human beings, good people.
There's a mix of songs on the album that you've written yourself and then there are some outside cuts. What do you look for when you are choosing an outside cut? Is there a rule? A sound? Or does it just depend on a song-for-song basis?
For me, it's song by song. I'm very focused on creating entire records that feel like whole projects. There needs to be a dynamic and cohesive flow from one song to the next one. The sequence has to be curated and very well thought out so that the listener can go on the journey that you want them to go on.
A great example is that this record was originally going to be called ‘The Bixby Record,' which is where I'm from in Oklahoma. There's a song called ‘Bixby' and it was going to be the title track but when we wrote ‘Black Bandana,' everything changed. That song had to be the focus of the record and I had to re-assess every song that was going on the record and the order in which they were placed too. I took some of the songs off the ‘Bixby' record and moved them out of the way and took some songs that I had in a pile that wasn't originally going to make the ‘Bixby' record and moved them back into play to be able to create the right dynamic.
Not all artists do that and maybe other artists cut everything on a song by song basis with no wish to create an overall arc but to me, that's really important, it's like putting a puzzle together where everything need to fit perfectly. That's why the first song on the record is ‘Ain't Gonna Lie,' a 70s sounding rock n roll song with a lot of soul and the second one is ‘Damn Good Country Song,' a three-quarter time, super modern song – I'm showing you the two sides of the album, the two most extreme sides of the spectrum in the first two songs of the album. Everything else on the record will fall within those two parameters.
‘So Far' was never going to go anywhere else on this album than in the final slot, closing the whole project down was it?
That one is one of the songs, that when we pivoted away from ‘Bixby' and towards ‘Black Bandana' that got brought in. I wasn't going to put a song called ‘Bixby' on a record called ‘Bixby' and then also have a second song that mentions ‘Bixby' – that's just too much! Too much Bixby, right? Where get where you're from dude, cool, now move on! (laughing)
This song felt like the perfect way to end the ‘Black Bandana' album. It's saying that we've come a long way but we still have a long way to go, which is the perfect sentiment to end my sophomore record with. We haven't arrived yet, we're still on the way and that song felt like the perfect way of ending on such a simplistic song. It's basically just me and a guitar, which humanises the project too.
Your two major label albums have been quite rocky, bombastic Country projects but then, with releases like ‘From the West' and last year's '23' they were a little more sparse and singer-songwriter esque. Are there two artists fighting for control inside of you?
(chuckling) A little bit, yeah. Part of me wants the accolade of my peers, which is the songwriter side of me and then part of me wants to sing to 70,000 every night, which is the commercial side of what I do. Both are me. I grew up loving commercial music – there's a reason that the Eagles were on the radio, right? I wasn't just listening to underground rock acts and songwriters, I listened to the Eagles and Boston and Mellencamp as well. I have an ear that loves commercial music but I also love deep cut Kings of Leon tracks as well! Finding the balance is the beauty of making a record because it gives you time and space to explore different sounds – if you only ever made singles each one would need to be as commercial as it could possibly be.
I also think that's why albums shouldn't be 30 tracks long as well because that's just too much artistry.
I agree, at some point with albums that long, it's like, yeah, we know, we get the point! (laughing) To me, it's like beating a dead horse, I don't need to hear four songs that all sound the same just because that's what you have written, right? I don't need four songs about the same subject matter to understand where you are coming from too. Albums should be digestible – they aren't five hundred page novels that you have to pick up and put down over multiple sittings to finish. All my favourite records can be listened to in one sitting and then the great ones make you want to listen to them all over again. If you get ear fatigue on song 22 and you walk away, just what listening experience are you taking with you from that music?
We've had a '21' and a '23' release from you in the past few years so is it safe to assume we might get a '25' next year?
(laughing) That's a great question!! I'll tell you this – I do have another project in the works that will summarise '24' quite nicely. I kinda see a theme continuing and I do believe that it's important to try and feed the fans that you already have rather than just be chasing new ones all the time, which is maybe what those other kind of projects do in my eyes. You gotta dance with the girl that brought you to the dance, man.
‘Black Bandana' will continue to be blasted all over the media, the playlists and the billboards – that's my way of serving the fans that I have whilst also trying to build and pull in new fans that maybe haven't heard as much of us as yet but the other projects are me trying to reward the loyal fans that have been with us for years.
We're looking forward to having you back in the UK after Christmas for the headline tour!
I'm so looking forward to it. My wife and I were just talking about this and how music has made our world just so big. We've gotten to do and go see things that I never dreamed of being able to do. I'm huge on the ‘when in Rome' mindset too – I want to submerge myself in whatever the local culture is and eat and drink whatever it is the locals eat and drink so I really enjoy travelling.
This will be our third time over in the UK and I'm investing heavily in the fan base over there. There are a lot of artists that don't make those trips across the pond because it doesn't necessarily make financial sense but, from day 1, I've wanted to invest in the fans in the UK – they are just so dedicated and I've always felt that if you show the folks there that you are willing to invest in them, they will invest in you. That's all you can ask for as an artist.
Check out Corey Kent's fabulous new album ‘Black Bandana' now – available in all the usual places. You can pick up tickets for the tour, either in the USA or in the UK right here.
