Maren’s Big Crush In Today’s Nashville Roundup

Old Dominion’s Matthew Ramsey tells the Journal Star that growing up grunge rockers like Pearl Jam changed his world. “I was a kid, and I loved all of that music. I think I heard Pearl Jam first and just thought, ‘What is this?’ There was just so much raw feeling and raw emotion that spoke to me. And all of that guitar work made me want to lock myself in a room and learn how to play guitar. Country music was always on in my house with my parents, but I was never the one seeking out country music until later in my life. I was always rock and pop until I was probably 19 or 20, and then I started really digging into the country.”

Luke Bryan tells People magazine that he is proud of his sons for the gentleman they have become. “They’ve carved a path toward being gentlemen and gentlemanly boys. And they’re just so different. They come home and sit down they do their homework and I’m like, ‘I didn’t do that when I was a kid.’ They’re just well-rounded kids — learning farm life and how to live on a farm and do outdoor things,” he continued, “but they’ve also come with me and been on set of American Idol and to these big cities and watched me do Dodgers Stadium and [have seen] the whole world and have a nice perception of it.”

Luke Bryan tells Pop Culture Country that he credits his grade school music teacher with his success. “I had a music teacher named Miss Unger, and she was the best. She was an amazing piano player. We’d have to get dressed up in costumes and do these musicals. It was kind of some of my first moments on stage, delivering lines, making people laugh. The most important part about children and music is just having an instrument around them. My kids are so blessed to have instruments in the house that they can run by and play on a little bit.”

Garth Brooks tells the Omaha World-Herald that his best songs aren’t necessarily the ones that were big hits. “I think there were a lot of songs that were singles that were underrated. ‘Mom’ is one of them. ‘The Change’ is another one. Phenomenal song. I love what it says. So you’re talking all kinds of different album cuts. That’s why I’m a huge album fan. I know personally, for me, there have been songs from artists that changed my life that were never singles. They were album cuts. That’s when an artist gets real, is on the album cuts.”

Cole Swindell tells Billboard Magazine that he wants to be like Dierks Bentley.“I’ve always been a huge Dierks Bentley fan, and everybody knows that, but what makes him so special is who he is off the stage, as well. He’s the kind of artist as I want to be. As long as I want to be around, I think you need people like Dierks Bentley to look up to, and call a friend, and that’s what I call him now — a friend.”

Maren Morris tells Billboard magazine that she has a big crush on Bruce Springsteen. “My music director is Max Weinberg’s drum tech, so we got to see Bruce’s guitars underneath the stage and watch his show from, like, two feet away. I could see the label on his jeans. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, he is so good-looking, he does not age.’ After seeing him play four hours, I was like, ‘I have no excuse to perform an off show.'”