IN CONVERSATION WITH BRADY SEALS
This past Friday, Intercept Music went Instagram Live with iconic country music star Brady Seals, who’s sold over 11 million albums and topped three genres simultaneously. He is best known for his six year tenure in Little Texas. Now, Seals is following a new path with SM1 Music Group, as he continues to forge his highly anticipated solo career. We went live featuring his latest release “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” – a song that’s been in the Seals family for generations. This recording serves as the lead single for Brady’s upcoming album slated to drop this fall.
During our time with Brady he played an acoustic version of “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” (check it out on the Intercept Instagram) and answered a few of our questions surrounding the release, his career, and advice to other artists. Here are some words from Brady:
Intercept: Tell us about yourself!
Brady: “I’m originally from Fairfield, OH, and went out on the road when I was 16 years old. I don’t know how my parents even allowed that, but I’m from a very musical family. It’s in my blood and I’ve always felt like I needed to do it.”
Intercept: Who are your biggest musical influences?
Brady: “Starting out, my biggest influences were Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. That’s where it kind of all began for me. And then as the years went by it was Dobie Grey, who was a really big influence on me, Tom Petty, a band called Jellyfish which is this pop-rock band – if you’ve never heard of Jellyfish you gotta check out Jellyfish – they’re incredible. It’s a cross between Bad Finger, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Queen, you know, it’s got all this stuff.”
Intercept: Tell us about your experience with your label, SM1 Music Group.
Brady: “SM1 has been so so good to me. You know, I got to meet them through an old friend of mine Eddie Rhines and he knows them through Clay [Brady’s manager, and a huge country star in his own right – check him out here], the guy who’s kind of running SM1. So when we started talking about this thing, again, I’ve been in the business a long time so I’m kind of skeptical. And I’m just thinking like I don’t know, is this going to happen or what?
I’ve been doing this since the gold records and stuff, and now it’s just not about records, it’s about followers, subscribers, listeners, they mean everything. So it’s kind of cool though because I can sit in my little music room here and do my thing, and spread my music word through my phone, which is completely different than how I operated before.
But SM1 has been so great to me, we’ve got a lot of singles on the horizon between the next month and a half / two months or so, so we’re just going to keep on hittin’ em. I’ve got so many that I’ve been sitting on for so long, it’s time, you know?”
Intercept: What’s the story behind your most recent release “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight”?
Brady: “We’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time. Last year it was such a crazy year of course with COVID and stuff, but I really had time to go inward and figure out what I wanted to do next in life, and I just came up with all these songs One of the songs is “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” – my cousin England Dan and John Ford Coley put this out in the 70s and it was a huge hit back then, and when me and Lua Crofts, which is Dash Crofts’s daughter, we’d go out every now and then and still do and play all these older classics. And when we would do those songs, we couldn’t not say anything about Dan and his legacy. So while we were out there doing that, this song was learned and it just felt right for me. I just hope to God that I do it justice and today the single dropped!
When doing this song, I really wanted to do it right, and I tracked it with the Petty Junkies, which is this cool local band that I play with – these guys are stellar players. Whenever I’m on the stage with them it’s all I can do to keep up, and we play all these tunes like Tom Petty tribute kinda stuff. But anyways, I thought you know what? I’m going to have them play on this thing because they’ve played on so many big hits throughout the years, and then I have John Ford Coley come in and sing with me, and was just so honored that he said yes. And he’s heard the version and loves it which is really all that matters, you know, I wish to God he was still around. And then I had Lua Crofts come in and sing all the cool, real pad, ethereal stuff at the end of the song, and I’m thrilled to death. Then I contacted a guy named Joe Smith. Joe was the dude back in the 90s who produced and engineered all the Backstreet Boys, NSync, Christina Aguilera, and I said man, I just want to see what he does to it and boy, he just put the sizzle on it. Couldn’t be prouder.
And I’m just so excited to be working with you guys, SM1, Universal, and all these people to give me yet another chance. You know, I like to joke that in the music industry, I’ve had more lives than a cat. Because I’ve had so many record deals and thank God, you know.”
Intercept: Any upcoming projects / tour dates / future plans?
Brady: “I do have a whole record done. It’s ready to go. And I’m thinking like fall of this year is when the full record will come out, and I’m going to have some really cool little collaborations, kind of like this one with John Ford and Lua Crofts (for “IRLTSYT”) I’ve got some other cool collaborations that I kind of want to let everybody in on as time goes by.
As far as touring is concerned I’ve already got a lot of tour dates on the calendar, you can go to bradyseals.com and find out where I’m going to be and all that stuff. But to my booking agent, I’m like ‘man come on let’s go work lets go work’ and he says ‘wait man, just wait until this single comes out because things are going to pick up.’ And sure enough, it has. And I’m just so thrilled. I can’t wait to get out on the road, I’ve got a killer little band, so we’re going to get out there and play all the hits from the Little Texas days, the Hot Apple Pie days, my solo days, and now this new project.
You can also hear me sometimes with Lua Crofts – sometimes we go out and do some of those shows, but this year I’ve been really concentrating on me. Trying to get this stuff out, you know, because like I said I’ve been saving it for so long.”
Intercept: Any advice for other musicians?
Brady: “Yes, I always have the same advice, and that is to know your music history. So often there will be an artist that will come on the scene, and they’re good at that particular thing they do, and that’s just kind of what they do from then on out. You know, and then, later on in life they start looking back and they start hearing all this other incredible music, and by that point they start going off in all different directions, right? So I would say learn it now. Literally just start listening to all of it, you know. If you hear an artist, let’s say, John Mayer for example. Well, find out what John loves, which is of course Stevie Ray Vaughan.
So what I’m saying is, go deep. If Stevie Ray Vaughan listened to so-and-so, then so-and-so listened to so-and-so. Just keep going back and finding all of the stuff and get down to the roots of it all, you know. And then you’ll be able to finally discover what YOU are. I just think that there’s so many times that people get caught up in new stuff, which new stuff’s great, love it, that’s what we’re talking about. But if it weren’t for the old stuff, there wouldn’t be new stuff. So that’s what it’s all about. I mean this brand new song is an old song, so that’s what I’m saying. Just know your history.”
And most importantly…
Intercept: What is your favorite food?
Brady: “My favorite food…oh boy…I love Italian food. If it’s a good sauce, you know, I’m in. You know what I’m saying? I am the dude. Now mind you I am a pizza connoisseur, I’m from Cincinnati and they’ve got some killer pizza up there. It’s just this really nice little mix of the north and south right there in Cincinnati, like they’ve got it all there. And of course there’s skyline chili. It’s like man if you’ve never had skyline cincinnati chili you’ve got to try it.”
It was such a pleasure to host Brady Seals on the Intercept Instagram live. Stream his latest single “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” here, and stay tuned for more from Intercept Music!