Some might say the voice on the other end of the phone line resembles the same groggy-sounding growl a late-night partier might make. Truth be told, the voice on the other line doesn’t sound fatigued. It sounds like work. Hard work.
Jon Langston is approaching the last leg and final shows of his Sunset Repeat Tour run with headliner Luke Bryan and Cole Swindell. The timbre in his voice matches the same spark that fans have come to know since his smoldering hits “Forever Girl”, “When It Comes To Loving You” and “Dance Tonight”. With no intention of slowing down, this former football standout is proving there’s more to his artistry than life on the gridiron.
The Sunset Repeat Tour heads to Detroit’s Ford Field Friday, October 25th. Home to the Detroit Lions, it seems a fitting backdrop to the former Gordon-Webb University Division I Runnin’ Bulldog Langston. Sidelined due to numerous concussions, the Loganville, Georgia-born singer-songwriter starts the night before Cole and Bryan take the stage.
After his set, there’s still work to be done.
“He’s one of the most genuine people I know,” Langston, 28, said of Bryan. “I’m lucky to have him as a friend, and as a boss man, mentor. I’ve learned to have fun. Watching him every night, seeing him, he’s a two-time entertainer of the year, dude. You watch him entertain 20 to 50 thousand people and it’s just incredible watching him work. I’ve learned a lot of tricks and tips on how to keep a show ‘up’ the whole time.”
Langston said he’s been to Detroit before, performing for a few, smaller radio concerts, but this will be his first “big time” full-band show. He’s changed up the set list from the beginning of the tour and will have everything finely-tuned for Motor City.
“I think we might mix it up a bit,” he said. “We might have to pull a prank on Luke or Cole or something.”
Growing up in Georgia, Langston modeled his guitar playing after Alan Jackson. He idolized the “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” singer-songwriter and credits Jackson for gravitating towards the country music genre. The state of Georgia, too, had an impact.
“Everywhere you look in Nashville, people are from Georgia,” Langston said. That list includes Jackson and Bryan. “The country music community and the live music community down in Georgia is so prominent. Everywhere you look and turn, there’s a show going on where someone’s from there or someone’s talking about Georgia. It’s definitely a big reason why I fell into the country scene.”
His hometown is just under 40 miles from another musical hotspot: Athens, Georgia. Home to R.E.M., The B-52s, Drive By Truckers, Widespread Panic and The Black Crowes, among others, the “Classic City” has also influenced Langston’s music.
“Athens is like a mini-Nashville,” he said. “Kind of like the underground scene. It’s a very musically inclined town. It’s not just a college football town, a lot of musicians and great bands come out of there.”
Grinding it out since 2013’s EP Runnin’ on Sunshine, Langston followed the independent release with two more extended plays: Showtime and Jon Langston. Showtime (via the Treehouse label) garnered a No. 8 spot on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and landed No. 26 on the Billboard US Country Chart. Jon Langston, released via independently in December 2015, topped the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and charted at No. 25 on the Billboard US Country Chart.
The momentum continued when February 2018’s release “When It Comes To Loving You” reached No. 29 on the Hot Country Songs and No. 1 on the iTunes all-genre chart. In 2017 Langston opened up for Bryan on the “All My Friends Say” singer’s Farm Tour. Langston has since signed a publishing deal with Sony ATV, management with KP Entertainment and is the first artist signed to Bryan’s new label 32 Bridge Entertainment in conjunction with EMI Records Nashville.
Langston’s latest release is “Now You Know.” The song is a powerful, burst of energy bordering country-rock with the anthemic chorus: I’m a cold beer drinkin’ every Friday night, Singin’ them songs ’bout the girl I love, I’m a small town, running that sundown, Till I get downtown tearin’ it up, I just go with the flow with the whiskey and Coke, If you ever wondered how I roll, Well now you know.
He’s been working with writers while on the road and hoping to roll out more hits.
“We’ve written a lot, a bunch of good stuff we’re going to be recording this fall, hopefully before the fall’s over,” he said. “Especially the first half of the tour, I had a bunch of buddies, writers from Nashville, come out on the bus. We write songs during the down time, before the show. I’m excited to get back into the studio and record some new music.”
Like most country artists, Langston is accessible to his fans. His nearly two-hundred-thousand Instagram followers know he likes Chick Fil-A and he has a very down to earth personality. What they might not know is that he gets pretty stoked watching HGTV stars Chip & Joanna Gaines.
“I feel like the fans know everything about me, because I share so much,” he said. “I watch Fixer Upper all the time. I guess it’s my guilty pleasure.”
Hoping he can use the skills he’s been watching from the Gaines’ television show, he thinks when he finally gets off the road, he will find time to renovate his new Nashville home. Afterall he will be recording those new tunes he’s been writing. Still, that ever-elusive time is what seems so far away right now. He’s too focused on the shows at hand.
Being a musicians is a lot like being an athlete, after all he said.
“I take a lot of what I learned in football and put it into my work,” Langston said. “In football you wake up, you go to practice all week, and you play the game on the weekend. If you’re not waking up and practicing and getting better, than someone else is gonna take your spot. Same thing in music. The competition is just as hard. If you’re not waking up and you’re not writing songs, someone else is going to write that hit that you didn’t write that day. You practice. You rehearse. You go and play the shows on the weekends. It’s kind of the same deal, you know. Practice makes perfect.”
