Granger Smith has logged plenty of miles on the road since he released his first album, Waiting on Forever, almost 20 years ago (in 1998). The Texan has gone from being a popular local act to earning an opening slot on Luke Bryan's tour in 2016 and headlining shows all over the country, but no matter how big he gets, Smith says that he plans on always being a student of other artists, and teaches his band and crew to do the same.

"I tell my guys to try and learn something from every single band and crew, from their counterparts," Smith tells The Boot. "The monitor engineer, I want him to learn something from his monitor engineer, and then I want him to report back to me what he learned. It could be, ‘He wears close-toed shoes, and it works great in sand;' it could be anything. I just want it to be something that they learned ...

"There’s something to be gained at every single opportunity," he continues. "So I watch the front guy. I see what they’re doing; I see, ‘Oh man, that really worked, what he was doing. How can I incorporate something like that?’"

Smith's latest single, "If the Boot Fits," from his 2016 album Remington, has been out for nearly a year (since March of 2016), but the artist and his team are promoting the song "like it's brand new," Smith says -- and fans are reacting to it that way.

"We put that thing out in March, and we’ve been pushing it since March, so for me and the band, to us, it’s an old song," Smith explains. "But I still see people who tweet and say, ‘Love Granger’s brand-new song. I just heard it on the radio.’"

Fans' reactions to "If the Boot Fits" inspired the song's accompanying music video, which includes live footage of fans raising their boots in the air during Smith's live shows.

"Random people just started holding up their boots. And so I would encourage them to do that. Then we were going to make a music video ... and we thought, 'Let’s make that the music video,'" Smith recalls. "And when we put that video out, it encouraged a lot more people to hold up their boots."

Smith is spending most of the next few months out on the road; a list of all of his upcoming shows is available on his website. "If the Boot Fits" is available for download on iTunes.

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