A TALK WITH TIM
Coming off a 2017 duets project with his wife Faith Hill, Tim McGraw knew he had something meaningful to say about the human condition and the connections we all forge during our short spell on this planet.
So the songs he had drafted for his recently released Here On Earth, his 16th studio album in a nearly 30-year career, were meant to capture, as he says in a Zoom call from his home in Nashville, “the tapestry of life.”
It was only when the pandemic hit in March that the Grammy-winner understood his music, and specifically this new record, could speak to the bigger moment we’re all living through.
“How the state of the world changed really forced us to focus in on what songs needed to go on this album and how it needed to be shaped and how the story needed to be told,” McGraw, 53, says. “We wanted to make sure that emotionally we were on target according to the times we’re now living in … We thought it meant something to put it out during this time.”
You had a whole summer tour booked. What’s been the hardest part of the quarantine?
Just not touring. I’ve spent so many years out on the road. I used to say that I wished that I had six months off. Year after year, I played a lot of concerts,
I’ve raised three kids with my wife and I never missed anything — we were always going, going, going. I thought, if I could just have six months off maybe I could recharge my batteries. But after a month-and-a-half of it, it was like, ‘I need to go back to work. I need that energy.’ There’s nothing like playing live. I don’t think anybody gets into this business saying, ‘I’m so excited to sit around in a studio singing the same song over and over again.’ People get into this business because they want to be on the stage and they want to be in front of 30,000 people. They want to be slinging sweat, feeling that energy and buying into that emotion that we’re all in this together for the next two hours.
How did the duets album with Faith and the Soul2Soul tour the two of you embarked on impact the direction of this record?
Out of pure honesty, after singing with Faith for a few years — and this comes from touring with her before — I always know after having sung with her for an extended period of time that I’m a much better singer when I come out the other end of that. She’s one of the greatest singers on the planet. Being on the same stage with her night after night and having to keep up with her and sing harmonies with her and keep up with her stage presence, those things make me a better singer. So I wanted to take advantage of that and start recording right away.
You’ve been making music for almost 30 years. When did you know you wanted to be a singer?
I was always interested in music. I sang in church. I knew every song on the radio. I used to drive people crazy driving down the road, sitting in the car with my mom or my stepdad or my sisters and I would sing every song that came on the radio no matter what genre it was. Still, to this day, I can turn just about any song on and I’ll know most of the words to it. So I loved the radio and I loved listening to records. But I was an athlete. I always played sports, so that was my primary focus along with school. Then I got into college and I was doing pre-law, I was going to be a lawyer, and my first year of college I pawned my high school ring and bought a guitar. I sat there over the summer and taught myself 50 songs to play on the guitar. First thing I realized playing around the fraternity house was it worked pretty well with the ladies, so that made me stick to it a little bit more. Then at the end of the summer after learning 50 songs, I got a job playing for tips and then I realized I could pay my rent doing it. Then I just fell in love with it. It was something I just couldn’t do without and it wasn’t long before I sold everything I had, bought a Greyhound bus ticket and moved to Nashville.
What was the moment you knew you made it?
I’m still looking for that moment (laughs). But there have been a few times where we knew something special was going on. I remember I was playing a smaller club in Houston, Texas, and Indian Outlaw (from 1994’s Not a Moment Too Soon) had just come out and it was a big hit. We showed up and this place held like 500 people and there were 4,000 people outside. The owner set up big screen TVs with cameras on the stage. We had just finished a couple of songs and then I started Don’t Take the Girl and in the middle of the song, I just quit singing and you could hear people from the outside and inside — everyone was singing along to Don’t Take the Girl. I looked over at my guitarist and he looked at me and he winked. He came over after and said, ‘Well, I guess we can pay our rent for awhile.’
What are the five albums that mean the most to you?
The Eagles Greatest Hits is a huge album for me. Anything by Merle Haggard. I’ll take two by my wife, Breathe and particularly that single. It’s one of the greatest sounding records that’s ever been recorded. And her Cry album probably has some of the best vocals ever recorded. From me, I’ll say Set This Circus Down is a big one. Everywhere. The Dancehall Doctors album was a big one for me. Emotional Traffic was big because that was an exploration album for me and I tried a lot of different sounds and it made me a better singer for the projects that came after that. And now Here on Earth. mdaniell@postmedia.com