Columbia Records Nashville recording artist and hometown resident Mitchell Tenpenny has been keeping busy with touring with Old Dominion and performing at festivals. We had a chance to sit down with him and find out what fans need to know.
I asked him what is one of the best things about touring with Old Dominion and he said, “Just getting to see them every night. Honestly, they’re so professional and great songwriters. Halfway through the set, they come out and play a bunch of the songs that they’ve written and stuff. I just think that’s so cool. It’s awesome!”
Mitchell has had his share of success writing songs with other people that have done really well, like for Granger Smith. Mitchell says, “Absolutely, sometimes you get lucky and someone will cut one of your songs and you get to hear someone else sing it; that’s always fun. As a songwriter, that’s the goal. So, it’s been pretty cool,” says Mitchell.
Mitchell tells me about some of his biggest musical influences. “Brooks & Dunn. I love Brooks & Dunn, but Michael Jackson and John Mayer, growing up, were some of the biggest. And the Eagles, I just love their harmonies,” explains Mitchell. He continues, “John Mayer’s songwriting. The honesty in it, the cleverness of it and just how he plays guitar. What he can do with basic cords just really intrigues me. I’ll never be John Mayer as far as a player, but he gives you something to practice to, more or less. I used to play his records over and over again, and try to learn the guitar. And to learn how to describe a situation like he describes it. There’s just something brilliant there that he does, that nobody else does. They’re some of my biggest influences for sure.”
Most people leave where they’re at and go to Nashville, and Mitchell was actually born and raised in Nashville. So I asked him if he always envisioned being a country artist and he said, “To be honest, no. I bumped my head early, I guess. I don’t know what happened, but no, I was around the industry. My grandmother was in the industry of songwriting. She was a president of Sony Publishing, which meant she dealt with all the songwriters and artists who wrote their own songs. So, I got to grow up in country music, so I always thought I’d do something music-wise. But to be an artist, that never really crossed my mind. I was in bands my whole life, rock and roll bands, pop bands, singer/songwriter stuff, but I never thought it would be me doing it. That just kind of happened from songwriting. You’re playing your songs out at songwriters rounds and stuff, and you’re trying to get songs cut by the artists. One thing lead to another, and someone says, ‘You should sing that song, you should do it.’ Then I ended up putting something out. I don’t really know how it happened, but I never truly expected to be Mitchell Tenpenny as an artist. That was never the plan. But I’m having fun with it. I love it!”
“Drunk Me” did really well for Mitchell, it actually went to number one. So I asked Mitchell if he envisioned that song to be the one that kicked off his career and he said, “No, it’s weird, cause when I wrote that song, I pitched it. We were hoping someone would cut it. The song felt like a big song to me. You write so many, you end the day going, ‘I don’t think that’s it.’ But that one felt like, ‘Someone will take this,’ but no one did. When it came time to make a record, I actually didn’t sing the demo, my buddy did. He did such a great job on it. I was kind of nervous singing. I was like, ‘I’m not gonna do better than him on this demo.’ But I got a producer, one of my best friends, and we worked it out. When I heard it back the first time, I was like, ‘Man, this sounds different enough. I don’t know if it’s a good or not, but it’s different enough that if we’re gonna give something a shot, it needs to sound something like this.’ We put it out and thank god country radio supported it and the fans. It was just one of those god crazy things from the stars on up. You just sit back and enjoy the ride. Man, it was just crazy.”
The inspiration behind the song, Mitchell says, “Having your heart broken and going and try to drink’em off your mind. It just doesn’t work out that way. You keep taking shots and the next thing you know, you’re thinking about them even more. I’ve been there and my co-writer had been there. I wanted to write a song about that, where someone might quit drinking for a minute to stand a chance of getting over somebody. You can clear your mind, go hang out with your friends and don’t just go sulk about it. That’s kind of where it all derived from. I co-wrote every single thing on the record with my best friends in town, that I think are the most talented songwriters in Nashville. We kind of came up together and we all were writing songs and getting cuts together. So I wanted to make sure my record was full of that. I have to write my songs for me, personally, to make you believe it. I’m not saying I’m not open to outside songs. But it has to relate and connect to me just perfect for me to sing it as an artist. I want to be honest. I want to tell the truth, and if it wasn’t written by me, it’s kind of hard for me to do that. Having said that, if the perfect song comes along, I’d love to cut it.”
I asked Mitchell if he ever worries about how the song titles are ever perceived. He said, “Yeah, luckily we haven’t had any problems with those. But yeah, when they see ‘Drunk Me,’ ‘Alcohol You Later,’ ‘Bitches’ or ‘Mixed Drinks,’ it’s like, ‘This guy’s a drinking problem. All he writes about is drinking.’ My goal is for you to hear the song. You can’t worry about someone judging a book by the cover. That’s gonna happen no matter what. So, you’re hoping they dive in and actually listen to lyrics, and see that ‘Drunk Me’ has nothing to do with that. It’s a completely different song. ‘Alcohol You Later’ is about you get drunked. Done on an ex and you just can’t get over that ex no matter what it is. Even if you haven’t started drinking yet, you want to start drinking, just to give yourself an excuse to call them type thing. And ‘Mixed Drinks’ is about a girl that got her heart broken, then went to drink that guy off her mind. So, you want to open up these stories, but yeah, I can’t worry about it too much. The titles aren’t what they are.”
Mitchell says his favorite song to perform live is, “It’s a song called Goner. Me, personally, I love to perform it cause it’s fun playing guitar and it’s a fun band song. And obviously, Drunk Me, Alcohol You Later and Bitches when people sing it back. Those are fun live songs to play cause people are singing every word. But Goner, for me as a player. I love playing that song.”
Mitchell recently had the opportunity to play the Grand Ole Opry and we asked him what that experience was like for him. He said, “I keep saying it. It’s so cliche. I kind of lost myself in the moment. It’s something I won’t be able to describe until you’re standing up there again. It was just pure, full circle. This is something I’ve always dreamed of, seeing so many people play there. You kind of black out when you get up there, to be honest with you. So, it was just a dream come true. I’m excited to get the chance to do it again so I can kind of feel it again, because there’s just one of those moments where you’re just like, ‘Don’t mess up. Where are you? What is going on?’ Then it’s over and it’s like, ‘Geez, man,’ It’s a crazy moment, you’re just like, ‘Wow. We just played the Grand Ole Opry.’ That was pretty cool!”
Now, Mitchell was up for an ACM nomination for New Male Artist. He said, “Yeah, I’ll lose, but I don’t care. They deserve it. I’m just happy to be nominated. It’s an incredible honor. I did not expect that in any way, shape or form. I love all those guys and they worked their butts off. It’s just an honor to be noticed, it truly is. I had no idea. Me and my girlfriend were driving back from Gatlinburg and listening to the radio. They announced that. I was like, ‘Did they just say our name?’ She’s like, ‘I think they did.’ I called my manager and she’s freaking out, and I’m like, ‘Wow. That’s really cool.’ So, really neat.”
Mitchell considers his biggest musical accomplishment to date to be, “Just having the team we have, that believes in this. Honestly, it is an accomplishment. It’s so hard to find a band and a group, and a team that all believes in that. I mean, we ended up getting a platinum song. It’s just tough to do. It has nothing to do with the singer or the artist. It has to do with your team, your radio team and your management, and the band that goes on the road every day. So, I think that’s probably our biggest accomplishment, cause they just work their tails off.”
