Interview with Lyric Street Recording Artist Bucky Covington

Lyric Street Recording artist Bucky Covington is preparing for his sophomore debut album release. "I'm Alright". The new CD will be available fall of 2010. You may remember Covington from Season 5 of American Idol where he came in 8^th place. However he has went on to have a lot of success with his debut album. His self titled debut album was the best selling debut for any country artist in 2007. His first single, "A Different World," was also his first top 5 hit. His second and third singles "It's Good To Be Us" and "I'll Walk" were also top 10 hits on the country radio charts. With 61,000 units sold in the first week, his debut album gave Covington the distinction of having not only 2007's biggest unit debut from a new country artist, but also the best first week sales and highest Top 200 debut for any new male country artist in fifteen years. I spoke with Bucky Covington about his career up to this point and his new CD.

You have a new album coming out this fall, called I'm Alright, can you tell the readers about the album.

BC: We do have a brand new album coming out. Of course on the first album we had a lot of luck on our side, a lot of great fans and 3 consecutive top tens. But now it is time to move onto a new album. The album I believe is due out fall of this year. We have a single coming off of it now called "A Fathers Love". Very, very proud of this song. I absolutely love it. I think it is very relatable to any one above the age, of like five. It pretty much is talking about how a father can do about anything, but say that he loves you. I think it is very much relatable to a lot of folks. The album itself has got another great blend of country music on it.

Are you planning to make a video for A Father's Love?

BC: I do believe so, I believe we probably will be making one. This song is just coming out this month. It seems like we are getting a lot of hits on it. A lot of people seem to be liking it. So I imagine in the next couple months we should be making a video. If not I will have to talk to somebody.

In other videos you have included fans and they have appeared in the videos, do you think you will do this for A Father's Love?

BC: Anytime that you can include fans or anyone that is close to me and helps me do what I do for a living is a great thing. I love doing stuff like that, so yes I would love to do that again. I don't have any idea of how the video would go right now. Some songs when you sing the song, or when you write the song, you can almost picture the video as you are doing it. Then some songs I need the help of a director. The song "Evil Knievel"on the album, I've had the video pictured in my head for that since the day I cut it. So some ideas come to you easier than others. But I definitely imagine we will be doing a video for this.

Tell us more about the album

BC: One of the things that I love about country music is that it does have different styles in it. We have got a soulful song on there called "Hold a Woman", my sexy side, if you will. We've got some turned up songs, one is called "Evil Knievel." I am a huge motorcycle enthusiast,so I absolutely love this song. There is a lot of energy in it. We have got a remake of a Nickleback song on it called "Gotta be Somebody", so we have got a big blend on the album. The album title will be "I'm Alright", which is also a title track on the album. It is one of my favorite songs on the album. It is shaping up very well.

Mark Miller produced your debut album and he is producing this one as well isn't he?

BC: Yes I joined up with Mark Miller as soon as I came off of Idol. I have been with him ever since.

You were recently on GAC and your song Gotta be Somebody from the upcoming CD was #12 that week. What were you thinking and feeling to be sitting on the GAC stage and to have your song being played because it was in the top 20?

BC: That is just amazing and especially on something like that. It is a completely fan voted TV show. That really does say a lot. There a lot of reasons why that particular video meant a lot to me. We shot the video for it in my hometown of Rockingham, North Carolina. So it being of course in my home town and in all the crowd shots,there are friends and family and the folks that I know back home. I absolutely loved making this video. Also this particular song did not do that great on the charts. One thing I have noticed over the years is that everything is got to be on the 100%,on this particular song a couple things fell through.

On the radio it didn't do that great. But the fact that the fans picked it up and just voted,voted,voted it means the world to me. It has actually been up to number 8 on GAC, it hung around a little bit, then I think it went down to number 18 and now it is back to 12. It is just amazing, I have said it once and I will say it again. It is about the fans. You can take the greatest singer in the world, put all the money in the world behind them and give them the best songs in the world but if the fans don't dig it then you just wasted a whole bunch of time and money. So it is very nice, especially when there is a second album. The second album,especially in my situation, coming off of a show like Idol. The second album, you wonder will the people still remember you,will they still like you and remember you or was it just that show. I think we have took off on a great start and it is starting to seem like maybe people haven't forgotten me.

Gotta be Somebody is originally a Nickleback song. How did it come about for you, a country artist to be able to cover that song?

BC: Well first of all I am a big Nickleback fan, personally I don't think they have sang a bad song. They are the epiphany of a rock band. They are very high energy. About two years ago, give or take, I went and saw a Nickelback concert and I actually got to go back stage and meet Chad Kroeger, Great band, great group of guys and Chad was just an awesome person to meet. A lot of people don't know that Chad is a huge country music fan, he likes a lot of country music and he writes country music for other artists and such.

But that was actually my producer Mark Miller who had that idea. But really when he said it I've got to be honest with you,my personal take on it was probably the same as others, Really? I mean taking a Nickleback song and making a country song it almost doesn't seem like you could do that. But when went into the studio and we took out some of the electric guitars and put some fiddles in and a banjo none the less. I didn't think you could put a banjo in Nickleback but it worked.

February 2009 you had your first USO tour in Kosovo, Germany and the Netherlands, can you tell our readers about your experiences during the tour?

BC: That was a very, very cool thing. We went over for about ten days I think give or take. We started off in Kosovo. Kosovo was probably the most memorable for me, Amsterdam was lovely from what I can remember of it. Then we did about 3 days in Germany. Kosovo really meant the world to me, because that was the most third world country that we went to.

What happened there, was that some folks went over there about ten years ago and they pushed these people out of there homes. They had to go Germany . They had to learn a whole new culture, get new jobs, everything about what they had to do was different and that was if they didn't kill you on the way out. Pretty much what happened is Bill Clinton said well that isn't very cool. So we were just bonding, You always hear about, well American bombed and they did this for oil, they did that for money, it is always about money, but this particular thing we did was help them and I heard this from a local. When I left Kosovo I was never more proud to be an American. It was really,really just an awesome trip.

How do you strive to make sure that those who meet you leave with a good impression?

BC: Well I chalk it up to my Mom and Dad they did a really good job to make sure if I stepped out of line, they didn't ask me to get back in line they knocked me back in line. I have got to say it worked and I am very happy of the way I grew up. It just sums up to common sense. If a child comes up to me and I am drinking a beer or something like that I try, now there is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with having a beer, but me personally I do try to stick it behind my back. Make an effort. I just bought a new house outside of Nashville and of course my brother and I ride dirt bikes and everything. These kids who live down the road they just completely look up to us. I mean anything we say and do that's almost the word. Now some people can't stand me, I know that, they could care less what I say and do. But some people think that what I do and say is the way that it is supposed to be. With that in mind I always try keep that in mind and try not set a bad example.

What were you thinking, feeling and doing, the first time you heard one of your songs on the radio?

BC: Well the first time I heard my song on the radio I was looking for it. I was driving back home to my hometown. I drove for eight hours searching country station, after country station, after country station. I pulled up into my brothers driveway eight hours later and my song came on. So that time I was waiting on it and looking for it. Actually the first time it popped on me was walking down downtown Nashville down the sidewalk. One of the cafes had music playing on the outside and I remember hearing music. I was like Oh I like that song and I stopped and I said Oh that's my song. I think I was going to an interview or something. That was one of the coolest times hearing it.

What did you learn from your time on Idol?

BC: It is amazing what you learn on that show. You learn how to conduct yourself on TV. It is one thing to go to a whole bunch of people and perform but it is another thing to do it on TV, it is a different kind of game. How to conduct and interview, just how to act when it comes to TV and reporters and stuff like that. And tours, when I went on tour definitely the big thing was how a tour is put on. A big view on how a show is run.

Hold up a mirror to your career, up to this point; tell me what it is that you see?

BC: It has been a awesome ride. I have had a lot of people ask me"So how does it feel to have made it? Me personally, I can't say that I have made it yet. I will feel like I have made it, when it is 50 years down the road and I will be able to look back and I am still doing music. To me that will be when I have definitely made it. But we have had a great start. First of all we came off of American Idol, which was a great start. It puts a name and a face with the sound. We have been very blessed and followed it up with three consecutive Top 10 singles. The way I look at it is we got a good foot in the door but we still have got a lot of work to do and a lot of people to reach.

Besides the new CD that you are preparing to release, what are you up to in the near future?

BC: Other than the CD and the single we will be going on the road, The calender is starting to fill back up of course summer is coming up. You can go to Bucky Covington.com and my MySpace page and look for a show near you. If I am not coming to a town near you call somebody and complain about it.

You can go to People.com to listen to Bucky Covingtons new single "A Father's Love."