Since releasing his debut album in 1999, Brad Paisley has seen—and accomplished—some things.
Over the course of his 20-plus-year career, Brad has earned three Grammy Awards, 15 ACM Awards and 14 CMA Awards, including Entertainer of the Year. The Grand Ole Opry member (2001) has scored 19 No. 1 singles on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, as well as nine No. 1 albums on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. You’ve seen him on TV as the co-host of the CMA Awards, on Nationwide Insurance commercials and as the star of his own prime-time special, Brad Paisley Thinks He’s Special.
Needless to say, Brad is a respected “voice” in the country music community—as a songwriter, musician, singer and statesman. He’s also having a lot of fun.
As Brad told Kix Brooks of American Country Countdown, he’s having fun watching “a new generation reinvent this business” with a combination of musicality and social media savvy.
“It’s really encouraging in that these are people that have a set of tools that we didn’t have—they’re all social media savvy,” says Brad. “And, some people would see that as a, you know, a hindrance towards the way it used to be, but I don’t care . . . when they’re all so good at things like Instagram and putting new songs online and getting their fans engaged, it’s exactly the thing we were doing back when we were making music videos for CMT and back when we were showing up doing certain little events in stores. Now, they do that on Instagram, and it’s a lot more people and they can immediately impact and its quicker and it catches fire quicker. They are affecting people and its really fun to watch, and I’m a fan of what they’re doing, and musically speaking, too, they’re great, but, you know, I think overall it’s fun to watch a new generation reinvent this business.”
