Jason Aldean does not regret releasing his “Try That in a Small Town” song or its music video despite widespread backlash.
“I don’t feel bad about [it] because I know my intentions behind, you know, shooting the video there and recording the song and everything,” Aldean, 46, told CBS News in an interview published on Wednesday, November 1. “I would do it over again, every time … minus the setting, knowing what I know now, obviously, you know, knowing that that was gonna be a thing, you know, maybe you look at doing it somewhere else.”
He continued: “I know what the intentions were behind the location, the video, the song, all of it. And, you know, and I stand by all that.”
The country singer dropped “Try That in a Small Town” in May, and listeners quickly criticized his lyrics as seemingly promoting anti-gun control legislation and racial inequity. Backlash escalated when the song’s music video dropped in June.
“There was people of all color doing stuff in the video. That’s what I don’t understand,” Aldean said in Wednesday’s sit-down. “There was white people in there. There was Black people. I mean, this video did not shine light on one specific group and say, ‘That’s the problem.’ And anybody that saw that in the video, then you weren’t looking hard enough in the video, is all I can tell you.”
The video’s setting also sparked controversy. It was filmed in front of Columbia, Tennessee’s Maury County Courthouse, which had been the location of a Black teen’s lynching in 1927. Aldean, who lives in Columbia, asserted that he did not know about the courthouse’s history.
“But I also don’t go back a hundred years and check on the history of a place before we go shoot it either,” he said, claiming that most small-town courthouses have had “racial issues” in the past. “It’s also the place that I go get my car tags every year. It’s my county that I live in.”
Aldean further told CBS News that his music video was actually meant to highlight the “lawlessness” and “disrespect for cops” that some small-town residents have adopted. His personal experiences at the 2017 Route 91 festival — in which a gunman opened fire during Aldean’s set — also inspired the track.
“My pregnant wife was there. Our fans were there watching the show,” Jason said, referring to spouse Brittany Aldean. “All hell breaks loose and you’re not prepared, you know, it’s like, ‘I got a guitar, what am I gonna do?’ I do think it makes you look at things a little different when you go through something like that.”
With Jason’s alleged good intentions, he admits that he initially thought the “biggest issue” with “Try That in a Small Town” would be his use of the word “gun” in the lyrics.
“So, I didn’t expect it to get the kind of heat that it got,” he admitted. “And I think that was more probably because of the video, more so than the actual song.”
