Songwriter Reacts to Zac Brown’s ‘Worst Song I’ve Ever Heard’ Comment
Zac Brown made some waves this week with his comments about the state of mainstream country music, and specifically Luke Bryan’s hit single, ‘That’s My Kind of Night.’ Now Dallas Davidson, one of the three songwriters on the track, has responded to the controversy.
The song came under fire from Brown in an interview with Vancouver’s 93.7 JRfm. “If I hear one more tailgate in the moonlight, daisy duke song, I’m gonna throw up,” he told the station. “I love Luke Bryan, and he’s had some great songs, but this new song is the worst song I’ve ever heard.”
Davidson wrote ‘That’s My Kind of Night’ along with Ashley Gorley and Chris DeStefano. It tells the story of a country boy’s ideal kind of night.
“We write about what we know about,” Davidson says in an interview with Roughstock. “What I know about is sitting on a tailgate drinking a beer. Hell, I live on the river. When Luke called me to tell me about what happened, I was literally smoking Boston butts on my homemade cooker at my 800-square-foot river house with about four of my buddies with their trucks backed up, sitting on a tailgate. And they want to know why we talk about tailgates in songs … well, that’s because we’re sitting on them.”
As ‘That’s My Kind of Night’ nears Platinum status, it seems that fans don’t share Brown’s problem with tailgate songs. But Davidson notes that it doesn’t mean there’s no room for Brown’s style in the genre.
“What they do is something different, but it’s something that a lot of people in this country love,” says Davidson. “I have no problem with Zac’s music. His stuff is a little more jam band and Allman Brothers-style, with a little bit of a country flair to it. That’s great! That’s great for country music.
“All that should matter is how it appeals to the country music fans and the people who are riding in their cars and trucks with their radios on,” the two-time BMA Songwriter of the Year adds. “That should be all that matters. I’m doing what I want, and I’m doing what I think people want to hear. We’ve got to give them what they want. That’s our jobs. Without the fans, we don’t have a job, so I’m going to keep doing my thing. And if anybody's wondering ... I've got Luke Bryan's back 'til the day I die."