ERNEST Interview

Interview by Sydney Hise

ERNEST has had a big year: from touring with the biggest names in country, to releasing his second album. His fall Sucker for Small Towns tour sold out quickly, with dates in towns like Columbus, OH, and Peoria, IL where Pleaser Magazine’s Sydney Hise caught up with him to chat about Flower Shops, writing for One Direction’s Zayn Malik, and more. 

Photo: Delaney Royer

PLEASER: First off, congratulations on a great year. You had a fantastic 2022.

ERNEST: Thank you!

I saw today that “Flower Shops” went platinum, which is awesome, that's a good way to end the year! This [Peoria, IL] is your final date on the sold out tour. Have you had a favorite show that you've played all year?

E: Oh, man, It's been tough to say. I feel like we're getting, we get more in a groove every time we get on a stage. This last weekend has really been great. Chicago was awesome. Last night was great. And then just based on the room size and capacity tonight, I think tonight's gonna be pretty hype, too.

Legit! You've played a lot of supporting sets in arenas, and then you've also played more intimate shows like tonight. Do you have a preference on which one you enjoy more?

E: Yeah, there's something to be said for playing in massive arenas for that many people. However, being in a more intimate setting and being able to see people in the back––and then also the difference is, these are my shows, my fans, right? And they're singing every word to every song. And that's, yeah, that's a dream come true.

Do you feel like your music translates better to a smaller show?

E: I think it translates very well right now and I think it's built to scale up as big as we can take it.

So you went from a SoundCloud rapper to a big name in country songwriting. Do you feel like your roots in rap play a role in your songwriting process today?

E: Definitely, yeah, cause a lot of my writing is just freestyling still. So it's just a matter, I might be singing more about more country stuff, but I write a country song the same way I'd write a rap, and I think the years of rapping and consuming rap, and I still do, is flow––like I just don't think in normal box of country songwriting when it comes to flow and rhythm. And I've got some younger writers I'm working with right now. Chandler, my steel guitar player, and this other kid Reese Rutherford, his dad Rivers Rutherford was a big songwriter back in the day and the 2000s, and he's still writing with Kane Brown now. I say that to say it's, it's funny, because now there's a younger generation of kids who are trying to write songs that kind of sound like how I would write a song. And I get to have minions out here kind of doing my thing. It's awesome. It's cool. I love it.

Do you feel like you like mentoring younger songwriters?

E: Turns out! I didn't know that, I didn't know that I was gonna, I guess…I knew I wanted to do that. But I thought it would have been way later. But it just kind of has just happened organically. And I'm around really good songwriters, and they're in my band. Big Loud got a bus just to bring riders out whenever. So I bring writers out and I get to hand pick them. There's just some really good young talent and I got, I got given a chance to go get it when I was young and had nothing going for me. The Warren brothers were a very credible source to get me into rooms. So the fact I can do that for these guys is awesome.

Do you have a specific songwriter right now that you're sort of taking under your wing that you feel is––

E: Kind of all of them, it's just an open book to any of them. Yeah, I mess with all of them the same and then even ones, like Grady my drummer is a badass track-maker and writer too. But yeah. Good. Good whole wave of songwriters right now.

Legit. Let's talk a little bit about your album Flower Shops. Do you have a song that you're most proud of lyrically or sonically on the album?

E:  “Comfortable When I'm Crazy,” “Feet Wanna Run,” those are two of my favorites on there. 

Those are two very important songs in my life, so thank you for writing those songs. 

E: Very, very vulnerable songs.

Right, and I feel like for me, personally, I haven't seen songs about like, subject material like that, really. So it's cool that..

E: Yeah, most folks get in trouble for singing stuff like that.

I mean, if you slow it down and make it a ballad, nobody's gonna tell you no, right? You've had a few huge songs in the last year including your now Platinum record “Flower Shops”. Can you tell us a little bit about how that song came together?

E: Yeah, that was just a truck ride on the way to writing a song, me and Ben Burgess kind of just fell upon that song. We were listening to a George Jones essential playlist. “Good Year for The Roses” came on. We were both kinda like, ‘This song's awesome’. And he was like, ‘We should write a song like, “Good day for flower shops, it's been a good day for flower shops"’. I said ‘Hell yeah’. And then we developed this character, this guy that just ran out of sorrys. And we wrote “Flower Shops”. And the life of “Flower Shops” took on as you know it, it was probably a week before I put it on Instagram. And then off to the races.

Are you the most proud of that song because of the success it's had? Or do you feel like you're more proud of it because of what it is?

E: I'm more proud of it because of what it is. I mean, the way we felt the day we made it, before anybody else heard it, it was just as good––almost just as good as it feels singing it every night. 

Yeah. Is that your favorite song to play live? Or do you have a different favorite?

E: “Tennessee Queen” is actually really fun to play live. I didn't know it wouldn't be like that because my perspective of my songs is one way, and the fans have another one. So the first time we did that, it really was like a crowd singing loud moment. And it just gets better every night. So yeah, that one. “Flower Shops” and “Tennessee Queen”. “Feet Want to Run” has a cool moment: (singing) "One goes east and one goes west". That's fun too.

I used to be a huge One Direction fan. And you worked with Zayn Malik last year. What was that process like?

E: It was sick! Me and Jacob Durrett who's out here on the writing bus, uh…I wrote it originally with David Ryan Harris. And it kind of had a John Mayer vibe in mind, because I was like, ‘Maybe this could be used for John Mayer’. It lived for a year or so. And then somebody hit me up and was like, 'Yo, Zayn's looking for a song'. I sent 'Tightrope'. So we just went back and forth and co-produced it, me and Jacob, so it was just on email, never actually got to meet Zayn.

It’s a really interesting song in his catalog.

E: It is! If you think about it, when you listen, imagine it being a John Mayer song.

So you attended the CMAs (Country Music Awards) a few weeks ago, how was that experience for you?

E: Sick. I actually just did the red carpet and dipped. [laughs]

[Laughs] Did you? I didn't know that.

E: I watched it from my crib. I was in my boxers and socks watching at home.

Did you like it better that way? 

E: Yeah, way better. I knew I wasn't gonna win anything, so I could go and actually support them and get to bed early. 

You made a couple of best dressed lists, too.

E: Hell yeah! I'm always gonna make a couple best dressed lists, I hope. 

I think that's all I have for you. So thank you so much for doing this!

E: Thank you!