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He's got a kickable groin.
In light of the considerable controversy surrounding the recent release of Aldean's “Try That In a Small Town," a middling piece of pop-country claptrap that's long on deafening dogwhistles and short on competent songcraft, our hometown hero recently took to social media to share a personal anecdote, under this heading: "About 14 years ago, I kicked Jason Aldean in the ballsack. For real."
The musician, who plays in a country-infused rock & roll band, agreed to let us share the story — but only if we kept his name out of it. So, if his boast got your attention like it did ours, here's the scoop:
I moved to Nashville around the time he was starting out. He'd only charted a time or two by then, and he was big on a song called "Hicktown" at the time. It was a dumb song then too.
Drake White and I were both up for this Outlaw Country tour thing he was on. It would have been my first shot to hire a band and do 5 to 10 songs — like the opening opener for the opener type thing. A bunch of us were in this preproduction meeting, and Jason Aldean was there. He was exactly the guy he seemed like. Total thumb. Absolute toad. Fifteen miles up his own ass.
We were all sharing a green room, and he was feeling hot shit because a couple of the new artists were kissing his ass. He made a comment that I overheard that was something like, "Nobody in Nashville needs to be writing their own songs." I laughed out loud, and he got uppity about it. I was a lot more uppity myself at the time. We kinda nosed up, and I said something about how I ought to lay him out for what he did to country music, and he got all "hyuck hyuck Billboard charts" and I kicked him in the sack. He was big mad, and I left.
I didn't get the tour, and I got SUPER yelled at and almost dropped by my benefactor. A few people told the story, and he denied it happened. But it happened, and I've never regretted it.
Nor should you, good sir! Excellent work.
Appropriately, our new favorite St. Louis musician says that after sharing his story with the masses, people have been treating him like a hero, not a jerk.
"Try that in a sundown town!" one friend enthused, while another added, "Do it again please. Harder this time."
Even so, he feels a little sheepish.
"I've never been a physically violent person, but I was definitely kind of a little shit back then. As someone who is vehemently anti-pop country, it was sort of just a point of pride for me at the time," he explains. "And my benefactor was just so mad that I lost what could have been a break for me. It wasn't what I wanted, though. What I'm doing now is so much cooler."
So what is he doing now? Well, we can't share that or you'd figure out who this St. Louis-based hero is, and he doesn't want that. But on a completely unrelated note, we can share that the Fighting Side has two new singles out — "Fires" and "Can't Help Myself."
And they write their own songs, too.
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