Story Behind the Song: Tim McGraw, ‘Truck Yeah’

Tim McGraw released "Truck Yeah" in July 2012, as the first single from his Two Lanes of Freedom album, but the tune was written by LoCash's Preston Brust and Chris Lucas, along with Chris Janson and Danny Myrick. The song gave McGraw his highest-ever solo chart debut when it hit Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, eventually reaching No. 11 on that chart, No. 10 on the U.S. Country Airplay chart and No. 57 on the all-genre Hot 100. But, as Brust tells The Boot, LoCash were hoping to record the song themselves -- and how McGraw requested the tune is a pretty funny story.

[LoCash] were doing a charity event down in Mexico, and when you go to Mexico, or anywhere outside the country, usually your phone doesn't really work ... and so nobody's phone ringers are on, nobody really knew where we were ... and I remember, I went to my room in the hotel, and when I got to the room, my hotel room phone rang, as if the front desk was calling me. And I was like, it can only be one person ... And so, I pick up the phone, and we have this joke ... where I pick up the phone in my room, I always say, "DJ booth," and Chris [Lucas] will make a request, and it'll just be stupid ...

And so I pick up the phone -- "DJ booth" -- and it's Tim McGraw's camp! And I'm like, "Hello?" and they're like, "Uh, yeah, is Preston there?" And I'm like, "Okay, well, this doesn't sound like Chris, and you don't sound Mexican, so there's a pretty good chance this is really Tim McGraw's camp." And so, they said, "Listen, Tim is fired up about a song you wrote called "Truck Yeah," and we're ready to go." And I just remember feeling like everything was just "yes" out of my mouth ... and every "yes" was getting louder; I was getting so excited ... [but] I mean, how did Tim McGraw's people find me in Mexico? In my room? [Laughs] This is like Secret Service; this is incredible.

When we wrote "Truck Yeah," we were really excited, and we took it to our record label at the time, and we sat down with the head of our label, and we said, "We have our next single. This is is it." And so we played it for him -- we were so excited -- and he's like, "No." And we were like, "Huh?" And he's like, "Nope, this is not your song. This is -- nobody's gonna record this." And we were like, "All right."

So then we took it to our publisher, and when we turned it in, I remember just like yesterday, they just turned their noses up, and they were like, "Nobody's going to record this," and we were like, "Really?" And they were like, "Nope."

And you know, the day that we wrote it, we were told not to write a song about a truck. Because they said, "Don't write any songs about trucks because nobody's recording songs about trucks anymore," and we were like, "What? This is country music ... We love trucks!" And so we were like, "Screw it, let's write a song about a truck."

So Danny Myrick starts rocking the riff that's in "Truck Yeah" ... he starts playing that on the guitar, and he goes, "I say we write a song about a truck," and he looks at Chris [Lucas], and Chris says, "I'm in," and then he looks at Chris Janson, and he says, "What about you, Chris?" and Chris Janson says, "F--k yeah," and I went, "No, you mean 'truck yeah.'" And we just all looked at each other like, "Oh my God, here we go."

And, I mean, we wrote that sucker in the next hour and a half ... and then, sure enough, we tried to make it our single, our label said no; we tried to turn it into our publisher, and they were like, "Nobody's going to record it;" and just a few days later, Tim McGraw calls.

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