HOW BLANE HOWARD CREATED A SUPERBOWL SONG FOR THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS - #44

In this conversation, Blaine Howard, a country music singer-songwriter, shares his journey from growing up in the South to moving to Nashville to pursue his music career. He discusses the challenges of balancing family life, particularly with young children, and the impact of health issues.

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Blaine reflects on the role of social media in his career, how it has helped him connect with fans, and the unique position he finds himself in as a musician who creates parody content related to the NFL. 

He recounts surreal experiences performing at major events and the unexpected success of his hit song, which has garnered millions of streams. 

Throughout the conversation, Blaine emphasizes the importance of engagement with his audience and the realities of navigating the music industry as an independent artist. In this conversation, Blane Howard discusses the complexities of achieving viral success in the music industry, the art of storytelling in songwriting, and the challenges of navigating the evolving landscape of country music. 

He emphasizes the importance of social media presence, the reality of sustaining a music career beyond initial fame, and the need to connect with audiences through relatable narratives. Howard also reflects on the balance between traditional and modern influences in country music, highlighting the ongoing changes in listener preferences and industry standards.

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Chapters

• 3:01 Navigating Family Life and Health Challenges
• 5:58 The Influence of Social Media on Music
• 9:01 Engagement with Fans and NFL Culture
• 15:07 The Journey of a Hit Song
• 28:55 Crafting Stories in Songwriting
• 41:48 Navigating the Changing Landscape of Country Music

Transcript

ASG (00:01)
So tell me, who is Blaine Howard?

Blane Howard (00:04)
Blaine Howard is a country music singer songwriter and occasionally, I wouldn't say influencer, but occasional social media parody songwriter, things like that. I grew up in the South in the United States and grew up always singing in church and singing with my grandparents and my mom and all that stuff. I always wanted to be a singer.

And so when I graduated high school, I moved to Nashville, the home of country music and went to college here and just started, you know, getting the education and music that I'd never really done. No one played in bands or anything like that growing up at my school. So that was my first introduction to like playing live music with anybody other than maybe like a piano. So moved to Nashville, started, you know, as soon as I graduated college, started writing songs and just booking whatever little venues I could find to play shows and.

That kind of led to my career today, still doing it here in Nashville, writing songs, playing music, traveling on the road with the band. And then the whole kind of social media video thing, it kind of happened out of partially just like I needed to have content because the industry was moving that way. And it's a great way to connect with your fans. But also just, I started doing these funny little videos to try to make fans in different areas of the country. And all of a sudden some of them started taking off. So I just kept doing them.

ASG (01:32)
What's annoying you are a Swig Blin.

Blane Howard (01:33)
Huh.

Kids being sick is what is annoying me this week. don't know. mean, I know, you know, Ireland Thanksgiving is not like a big holiday, everybody, like the busiest travel days of the year in the US are the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after. So everyone's traveling. You're going to see family and there's, know, anytime you travel with kids, it's already, you know, stressful and hard, but then you get them around other people they haven't been around. They're exposed to more germs and yeah.

Kids getting sick, man. I have a four and a half year old and an 18 month old. An 18 month old is, she's just been fighting it ever since we traveled last week. She's finally coming out of it, but it's been like, gosh, I think it's been the last week or so, at least the last five or six days that she's just been fighting the sickness. know, anytime you have little kids, they're always sick from going to school and all that stuff too. But having to do it while traveling over the holiday was just.

Yeah, that's what's annoying me this week. I am thankful. was thankful to see family for our holidays, but thankful to be back in our little bubble so she can get healthy again.

ASG (02:41)
Sickness is my constant what's annoying me because I have crippling and I cannot emphasize crippling enough health anxiety. Anybody sneezes or coughs in my vicinity I panic insanely so sickness in general is my constant what's annoying me.

Blane Howard (02:59)
Well, don't come to Nashville then because Nashville is like the allergy capital of the US. Like I didn't understand why when I started college here and I would get a sinus infection like every semester, every six months. I was like, why am I getting sick all the time? And I just assumed it was like, I'm just around all these people at school and everything else. Come and find out Nashville, just the allergies are.

I went and got allergy tested a couple of years ago. It's like you are the highest level allergic to every grass, tree and weed that grows in this area that just doesn't happen to grow five or six hours away in my hometown. yeah, Nashville is the just sneezing, coughing, know, swelling eyes capital of the U.S. It seems like just from the allergies.

ASG (03:49)
Yeah, UK and Ireland is the hub for colds and flus because of the weird temperatures and how drastically they drop especially at this time of year so I'm constantly in fear pretty much I'm walking around all the time with sweaty palms

Blane Howard (03:58)
Hmm.

I can believe it. I can believe it.

ASG (04:06)
Right lets get into this now with you because you said that you don't know if you're an influencer or not and what's funny at me is I broke down on this influencer question mark because of the videos you make so I think my research is about faded already.

Blane Howard (04:18)
haha

Yeah, I don't know. feel like the influencers are like, well, one, they just have a lot more followers maybe, but most of them, like when I think of influencers, I think of like the girls that my wife watches that like, you know, that do all their clothing stuff or their makeup lines or whatever else, or like their, you know, home decorations or whatever. But I guess there's like, there's music influencers, but I, to me, it's all part of my music career. So it's just like another little section of it.

ASG (04:38)
Hahaha

Blane Howard (04:54)
But I guess the whole Kansas City Chiefs parody type thing is kind of like an influencer thing. And I do happen to make a little extra income. I don't have millions of followers where I'm making insane amounts of money where I can quit everything else. But it's nice to have a little extra cash in your pocket around the holidays and things like that. But yeah, I don't know. I don't feel like an influencer. I'm not pushing products and stuff like that all the time. So I don't know. That's kind of where...

Kind of where I fall on it.

ASG (05:25)
Yeah, I liked the way you said the social media, like the videos and the skits became you wanted try and get fans more engaged and it kind of took off into this separate thing because I didn't even realise at the time but when the Superbowl was on all the edits and TikTok were your song and I didn't even realise until today because I googled Blaine Howard and it came up like videos that I had watched in my like watch history and I didn't realise it was your song so

Blane Howard (05:44)
Hahaha

ASG (05:52)
There was definitely a stage where you probably could have unconsidered an un-fluence or for definite.

Blane Howard (05:56)
I mean, last year, especially like during the Super Bowl, obviously with like the whole Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift aspect of it. Like if I just put an extra Taylor Swift hashtag onto a post, all of a sudden it would get all these extra views because that was a huge topic and it hasn't been as big this year. I feel like they're trying to kind of, you know, keep that on like, I don't know, just not have her be on the TV and at every game like she was last year. But yeah, it was it was crazy and just

You know, all the, it seems like all the videos, especially the ones I do in the playoffs always do better anyway, because people are so, they're tuning in every single day to their social media of what's like going on with the playoffs. So I feel like it's probably, you know, I know that like over there in the, in Europe, like they don't really do playoffs, I guess like the champions league or something like that. Like there's an actual like bracket play or the world cup. People tune in more to the actual.

elimination part then they do the group stages and things like that. So it's kind of the same thing. yeah, seeing the number of videos jump up, I think between, you know, middle of January to the Super Bowl last year, I had something like 20 million views or something like that across some of the platforms, which to me was the most I'd ever had to some influencers. They're going, I get that on every, you know, I get that every week or every month or whatever. But that was kind of cool to see and see the seeing the follower counts go up was really cool, too.

The hard part has been trying to get those people to listen to my other original music. Like, hey, I've got a new album coming out, things like that. But it's still been really cool and being able to go play shows and like have, I'll play a show nowhere near Kansas City and there'll be people in chiefs gear. like, hey, we watched your videos. We drove three hours to come see you for this show. So that's been really cool too.

ASG (07:39)
Hahaha

Has it been kind of the same this year? Maybe not quite that boom, but it's been kind of growing and growing because people have been kind of waiting for the Chiefs to lose and you were doing those parody songs where was like the Chiefs were never gonna lose. Was it kind of, it kept growing and growing as you went through?

Blane Howard (07:56)
Yeah.

It was for sure in like the first couple months of the season. They kept winning and everybody was like, I cannot believe the Chiefs are continuing to win. And then also some of the teams that were like the big teams that people thought were going to knock us off and maybe meet us in the playoffs haven't been playing well. okay, the Buffalo Bills are playing well, but like we beat the Ravens last year, they've lost five times. The Bengals are out of the playoffs. So it's just been kind of...

Some of it's kind of died down, but it's also early in the season, a lot of those fans that were hoping their team would beat us were like having the haters in the comments definitely helped boost some of those videos. Just getting on there. And if I can get on there and just kind of rib people a little bit in a fun way, I try not to be like mean to people, but just being able to like go on there and just reply and stuff like that to some of those people. All of a sudden they're commenting every 10 minutes to reply and they're replying to other people.

Anytime people start arguing in the comments, that means more people are going to see the video. So trying to do some of those funny, know, ribbon people a little bit definitely helps the video scene more.

ASG (09:02)
You

I can imagine some of your message requests after dropping one those party videos as borderline abuse.

Blane Howard (09:18)
Some of them are, most of the time, it, like most of the time it's just like reaction videos or something. I get a few message requests that are anti the chiefs or whatever, but usually it's just in the comments. It's more just kind of, I feel like because those videos do well, I get more spam and stuff like that, but I'm usually able to clear those out pretty quick. And it comes and goes like on Instagram.

I feel like on Instagram, I get more of the message requests, but on TikTok, it's just straight comments. I feel like I don't know what the difference is. It's just a different generational thing. it's all the younger kids are on TikTok and Instagram is more like, you know, 30 to 45 or something like that. But it just kind of, it kind of changes up based on, based on, I guess, the platform.

ASG (10:08)
Have you had any NFL players react to it? Because I'm guessing they see it too, especially if it's about their team.

Blane Howard (10:15)
I've had a few players react to it. I mean, it'd be great if a big player like Patrick Mahomes or Travis Kelce reacted to it or something. But I also feel like they can't react to anything on social media because, I mean, if they react to somebody in a comment or whatever, then everybody's gonna be trying to get them to react more. just if, for some reason, they reacted to one of my videos, all of a sudden they're gonna get 50 to 100 videos.

ASG (10:20)
Not quite there yet.

Blane Howard (10:45)
Trying to get people to react to those as well They don't want to feel like they've reacted to one and not reacted to the other But the cool thing has been some of like the celebrity Chiefs fans like I wish I could get someone like Paul Rudd like if Ant-Man could respond or something that would be awesome, but I've had a few like Rob Riggle who's a comedian here in the US. He's a comedian actor. He's in step brothers like he's he follows me now on Instagram if like sees the videos and

Like one of the members of the Backstreet Boys is also a Chiefs fan. Like he's reacted to some of those, like the 12 year old me is like, that's the coolest thing ever. But the cool thing has been meeting some of the former Chiefs players, like having them react to the videos and guys that I grew up watching in like the 90s and stuff. I've actually had a chance to like meet them at events and things like that. And like some of them actually like have their phone numbers or I've done videos or songs for them. So that's been really cool.

ASG (11:40)
You performed at one of the chiefs draft parties, isn't that right?

Blane Howard (11:44)
I've done a couple things. So I want to say, what year was that? 2023, Kansas City hosted the NFL draft. So the NFL kind of controlled all of that, but they did a big, so the Chiefs, basically all these former players that used to play for the Chiefs that weren't like on the the All-Star Hall of Fame level of players that were contributors that played a lot. Maybe they were pretty good for a couple of years.

They have a group called the Chiefs Ambassadors and they do a bunch of charity work throughout the city usually, or just throughout the kind of area around Kansas City. And they put on a big concert and draft party to help raise money. So I got hired to do that, which was really cool. That was when it was NKC. And then the year before Kansas City hosted it, the Chiefs organization actually hired me to come play some music in the stadium.

they did a big, so if you're a season ticket holder, you got to go to this event in the stadium. was about five or 10,000 people coming in and out, but you got to go and you could throw a football on the field and they had like food set up and different things. And then some of the players that were drafted, like in the first couple of rounds, we had already flown in. They did interviews with them and interviews with some of the coaches. So getting to like play music on a stage in that stadium with like all these chiefs fans around was really cool.

ASG (13:10)
be quite a surreal moment like this is just a random tech talk I'm gonna make or like a Super Bowl song and all of sudden you're sitting in arrowhead

Blane Howard (13:16)
Yeah.

Exactly like it it literally started as I started in those videos as I'm going to a game I was like back in 2018. I grew up a Chiefs fan. was born in that area It's where my mom's side of the family is from but we never grew up close enough to go to games like it was probably a eight-hour drive when I was a kid so we weren't able to do that and Then so by the time I like finally got around to go and I was much older, but I just did a little video Just to kind of meet some people like

see who I can tailgate with stuff like that. Next thing I know, like the TV stations and radio stations in the area are playing it and stuff like that. And that led to so many, so many different things. So I just started doing them like every, you know, every week during the playoffs. And it led to me writing my, when COVID hit, obviously like I, my entire live music calendar for the year just disappeared. So I just.

I wrote my own Chiefs song and put it out with a highlight video on YouTube. The next thing you know, it's got a couple million views and I got hired to play a big tailgate at the Super Bowl. That just continued to take off too. So that's been kind of surreal. All of that leading to... I know certain family members of the Hunt family that own the Chiefs. They've reacted to some of the videos and stuff too and they've seen the song. So being able to have that happen and play in the stadiums like...

This literally started as funny to kind of just meet some people and it turned into me playing live music at Arrowhead Stadium, which is just insane.

ASG (14:47)
It's a real fever dream moment but are people that follow you on social media for these videos, are they surprised that you have actual ordinary music too? Are they like, my god, the chief singer guy makes normal music as well?

Blane Howard (15:05)
I think some of them maybe just like some of them just aren't aware at all and so I've tried to get on there and say like and usually with especially Fans from other teams that will comment saying I may not like the Chiefs But I thought the video was really good or you're a really good singer or something like that I'll put on there like hey, thanks for listening, you know I've got original music on Spotify or whatever if you want to check it out The cool thing has been I have a song that I wrote for my wife that I wrote for her as a wedding gift back in 2016 and

It has like 160 million streams on it across all the platforms and stuff. So it did really well back when it came out. And a lot of people will get on there and start looking at my music and they'll be like, my gosh, you're the guy that sings Promise to Love Her. Like I never put the two together. Like they've heard my music elsewhere, but they didn't know that I was like, I was the same guy. So that's been really cool too.

ASG (15:58)
Yeah, I had that wrote down to touch on that because that is... I don't think people understand how insane that is. Like there's some incredibly popular songs that don't have 100 million streams. Having 160 million plus streams. Like when that started like really taking off, were you kind of just sitting in awe like, I don't actually understand what's going on here. This could... I don't know where this is gonna end up.

Blane Howard (16:21)
Yeah, it was interesting. I think when we put the song out, we knew that there was something to it. I've never had a label or anything like that here in Nashville. So we put it out to, we paid for it for ourselves just to go to small market radio stations. Nothing that would ever register with Billboard or anything like that. Just these small market stations that were ported to a chart. And you're going to towns of like sometimes...

There's only 3,000 or 5,000 people that live there, but they're playing your song like five, 10 times a week. and it's helping you there. They've got listeners too. And the first, like I want to say, we put it out in March and it kind of, I think it was done about October of that year with the chart. And it did really well. Like it was the highest charting independent song of that year for that chart. And it had, I want to say by the end of the year, maybe a couple million total streams across like Spotify and Apple Music and things like that.

And we were, you know, kind of trying to figure out like what our next steps were going to be. I started recording, trying to write new songs in 2018, move on to like something new. And then by the end of that year, we noticed that it started really ticking up on like Pandora music, that was getting all of a sudden it was getting, you know, half a million streams a month or something like that. Like, well, what's this little uptick going? And so we did some research and we reached out to people we knew in Nashville and

They're like, yeah, if you move to a whatever, if we sign you up as a Pandora, whatever, as like a professional artist, not just somebody that's submitting stuff, I think the algorithm may like you better and things like that. So we did that. Next thing you know, it's taken off on Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs and Dan and Shay and all these other artists radio stations. It's getting a million plays a week at one point. And we're like, what in the world is going on? So we kind of put a hold to everything else.

and went back and shot a brand new music video to try to get it on CMT and all this stuff too. So a song that came out in March of 2017, we really didn't finish using that song as our main thing until the end of 2019 when the music video came out. It kind of had a life of its own. And even during COVID, during COVID, was still, it probably streamed more in 2020 than it did in 2019. So it just kind of kept going for a while.

And so for the song to even last that long as an independent song for it to like continue to gain streams for five or six years was really cool. And then it's, you know, obviously it still does well, but it slowly kind of died off as well. We've let, we put out a couple of new albums since then and things like that too, but it's just been totally surreal to get, watch it go like, okay, this song's done. Like we're moving on to the next thing. And then out of nowhere, it catches on and it just starts taking off in a whole new way.

ASG (19:16)
I've always wondered this about people who get those just unbelievable numbers on certain things like just anything in general because I have a few people that I'd speak to regularly that they've had some projects go just absolutely nuclear like they've gotten seeing numbers but I always wonder when you're seeing it raise that much and it's hitting like you said like a million a week at a point are the numbers still feeling the same as it's still feeling surreal or does it get to a point where like

can expect it now to keep this momentum going.

Blane Howard (19:50)
At first, you're definitely like, you're just grateful and surprised and you're just hoping that it kind of lasts. And then after a while you want it to continue to grow. Because even though it was doing that, like, and I think like it has about 25 to 30 million somewhere in there on Spotify and you know, a little bit less than that on Apple music, but combined it's got that 160 million. But you'd be surprised that that didn't lead to a lot of meetings and like people reaching out for stuff.

in Nashville. Like it didn't lead to label meetings or booking agency meetings or things like that, which we were hoping that it would. And I don't know if it just, if it happened, like when it happened and kind of COVID kicking off, like the stream started really taking off in 2019 and 2020. And then with the pandemic happening all at the same time, I don't know if that kind of stalled it a little bit, stalled some of the meeting portion of it. But with everything, like, especially with

streaming numbers and with your social media followers, you want to be able to progress to different milestones of listeners or followers in the same amount of time. So it might take you, it takes you six months to get 2,500, the next six months you want to see 5,000 and then 10,000. And so that's what you're hoping to see at that point. You're hoping that this has been great, let's see if it...

you know, we have another uptick and it goes to 1.5 a week or it goes to 2 million or whatever it may be. So you're, I wouldn't say that you're like ungrateful, but you also want to see the ball continue to roll and just kind of snow that snowball effect of everything getting bigger as well.

ASG (21:31)
think that's a harsh realisation that you mentioned at the beginning of that answer that people probably don't quite understand because they kind of think if I get one thing to go viral I'm automatically an overnight success that's kind of what they attribute to but you're someone that had that I wouldn't say was overnight virality but it went very very viral for a lot a period of time and as you mentioned it didn't quite lead to the celebrity status that you thought maybe you

Blane Howard (21:49)
Right.

ASG (22:00)
you assumed it would have. What's that like? Are you then trying to hold yourself back from chasing that adrenaline again or are you just as business as usual? Let's keep going what we were doing or if it catches fire again it happens.

Blane Howard (22:14)
Right, I think it's more of the second. It's more just kind of business as usual. I've talked with friends that have played with or worked with acts that had number one top 40 songs and it took them six years to get another one. People think that it's just like once you get one, it's easy to get another one, but it's really not.

Maybe in country music, if you're a big name and those things happen and you've already had 10, then that's easy. like getting, getting the first one is hard getting. I've heard that getting the second one is even harder because like one, you know, everybody can, can attribute it to luck or whatever, but two can be really tough. And it's been really hard for me to adjust because I, you know, I've been doing this. Gosh. mean, I've been in Nashville.

15, 16 years and watching the industry change. Like it was all about, you you get out and you play your shows and you get your showcases and you get industry people to come and you know, if they like a song or two, they like you, they'll start taking meetings and things kind of go from there. And just watching it all change to, okay, we won't take a meeting unless you have a certain number of Facebook followers. And then it turns to Spotify monthly listeners. And then now it's all, you know, it's all TikTok based. So like,

There was a while there during like, I want to say 21 and 22. was like, we won't sign anyone unless they've gone viral on TikTok or they have some song take off out of nowhere. Whereas like 2017 or 2018, that wasn't the case. So trying to keep up with the change of like what the listeners want and also like what the industry wants to see, that's been the toughest thing for sure. But that's why I'm trying to kind of push the social media aspect of it too, because if

If the label thing and like being, you know, on the radio and playing massive tours to stadiums never happens, there's still a way to make a really good living, you know, doing it on my own and going out there and playing, you know, 500 to 1000 seat theaters or whatever it may be. If I can keep the social media, social media following, like moving up with it.

ASG (24:28)
Yeah, that is actually very common. If you don't have a certain amount of followers or views on a platform, you're not getting booked because Scott Edwards was on the show a long time ago and he is like a comedy show owner. Like he owns comedy clubs and he was saying that whenever he came out of the pandemic, there was a lot of his like comedic friends that they were doing huge shows before the pandemic. But when they came out, it was like, we're going to pay the

sketch comedy creator on instagram that's got a million views on a sketch ten grand to come here and we're not even going to borrow offering you even five hundred dollars we don't want you because we put your name on your on our poster no one's going to care all his teenage girl followers are going to want to come to our show because he's on it is that is that still the same in music now or is it kind of veered off from people saying right going viral is not the best

Blane Howard (25:16)
Yeah.

would say it's leveled off a little bit. It's kind of like a little bit of both. Like there's definitely some like they signed or they hired these TikTok acts to come play a show, whether they're with a label or not. They hired them to come play and they realized they've never played live music before. They've never done anything more than maybe 30 minutes. So trying to pay somebody, say like you said, 10 grand or whatever to come play a show, you might have a ton of people there.

But if they get up there and they can't play more than 30 minutes, the fans aren't gonna like that. And if they've never done it, they don't have that experience on stage, then it's definitely gonna be awkward. Like I've seen situations where people get up there and they only play three songs in a half an hour, because they've never played more than three or four songs before. And they get up there and they talk the whole time. And people wanna hear stories to a certain point, but after that, like when you're at a live music show or whatever,

you eventually want to be like, okay, let's get to the song. Like you could maybe talk for 30 seconds, know, but if they're talking for five minutes, people are going to tune out. They're looking at their phones and everything else. So that's been, that's been my experience is definitely a fight to like, they want to see what your social media following is and stuff like that. And a lot of venues that were just kind of the built-in crowd live music place that everybody went on Friday and Saturday nights. Just go see whoever was playing there.

A lot of those places have closed. I think they fought to get through the pandemic and then came out the other side. People aren't spending $25 on a ticket to go see somebody every Friday or Saturday. They'd rather wait and spend $500 on a Luke Combs ticket or $1,000 on a Taylor Swift ticket or something to make a weekend trip out of it.

And they might do that once or twice a year now, where they're not going out to see live music every single weekend. So it's definitely, it's been a change for sure. And I've talked to venue owners and I've talked to artists that are fighting it. then, so that's again why I'm trying to kind of keep the social media following up. If anything, it looks good to the venue or the festival or whatever that you have that following as well. So I'm trying to weigh both. the biggest thing to me is I've been doing this

full-time for 10, 12 years now. So I have that experience under my belt where someone that has half a million TikTok followers that has never played a live show doesn't have that.

ASG (27:53)
Yeah, the storytelling is such an underestimated aspect because that's kind of what music is. Music is telling a story just in a way that people can relate and sing along to and your songs are very on that basis. Like you mentioned the song, we've mentioned the famous song you have that it was a wedding tribute to your wife. I always wanted to know this though of how you can put a story into song form because

You're probably the best person to this because I've asked Richard Lynch this and he had different way of mentioning it but you're probably the best because you also do the same concept for your social media videos where it's a theme and then you work back. Is that kind of how your process is with the writing the songs? Are you putting the story in front of you first and then working around it or are you building it as you're thinking of the story?

Blane Howard (28:48)
It's usually you have the con I have the concept to to begin with now it may not be Completely written out, but I might say I have a I have a title like just okay We'll go with promise to love her so it's like for just for this. I had the idea of Promise to love her being the title of the song but in the story you're saying it to three different people So in the first verse you're saying it to her father when you're asking for permission to marry her

The second verse you're saying it to the preacher during the ceremony. And then the third verse, you're saying it to the doctor that brings in your baby girl. So I had the three different ways that I wanted to go with it, but also I didn't have the entire story laid out. You wanna have some truth in there, but at the same time, you can't always tell it exactly how it happened, because it just doesn't write as well. So you have to kinda...

embellish a little bit or change things up or sometimes like that's where co-writing comes in other people have ideas of their experience from that same situation. So that's I went in with that idea with my co-writer and luckily he had just gotten married the year before I had just gotten engaged. So we were both in like the newlywed or about to be newlywed mindset. So we could easily kind of go right back into the memories of like asking asking the father your father-in-law for permission.

and the wedding ceremony and all that stuff. So that's just, that's how that one started. And I'm kind of the same way on a lot of other songs. I start with a title idea or a phrase that I think is cool. And then we start, I start going, okay, well, if that's gonna be what the chorus is about, what's a way that I can work it in the different verses? And I may not have the entire like lyrical structure or the story all written out, but it's definitely kind of like a

mental outline of like I want to start here and then second verse will be this and then third verse gonna be that and sometimes it's three different stories that all work with the same and Sometimes it's the same story. Just you're kind of progressing along

ASG (30:57)
Since I started the show I have realised I may be in the bottom 1 % of intelligence in humans because I have zero idea how you can even put three different stories into one, make it all come together and have an overall story as well while also making it relatable to the person listening so they can think of stories. When you're putting these stories together you always said you had three different ones and you're obviously basing those stories on your own experience and

your co-writers experience. Is there a part of you that's also trying to link it to someone that's listening, so a little bit more relatable to make it then catch fire?

Blane Howard (31:36)
Absolutely. Like that's the number one thing like as much as I love to write music for myself and it can be therapeutic to write some of these songs for myself. Sometimes I write songs and it's just I have to get this song out of me or this idea out of me. Whether anybody ever hears it doesn't matter. Like I just have to get it out of my head and it can be therapeutic in ways of like this is a story that I'm telling of like heartbreak from back when or sometimes it's just I can't get this idea out of my head until I write it and if it turns out good

If it turns out mediocre, then no big deal, but at least I've moved on. But we definitely, you always want to relate to the audience. But one thing I've definitely found is if you're being real with people, then that usually will make it relatable. I feel like everybody has the same similar life experiences. Now, obviously some people grow up in different financial situations or different cultural situations, but I feel like

everybody has, you know, everybody remembers growing up as a kid and, you know, going through high school and first love and, you know, your first car, like everybody has those, those same memories. It may not be the same, may not be the same car, it's the same type of car or whatever, but everybody can relate to that. And that's where co-writing comes in too, is if someone else had that, if you're saying something like, I like this idea for a song and they go, I have a similar experience to that.

That right there tells you that two people in the room have somewhat the same experience. if the two of us have it, that probably means that there's a big large group of people out there that have that same experience as well.

ASG (33:14)
Do your song get received better at weddings compared to live shows, fairs or events?

Blane Howard (33:25)
It's kind of the same, honestly. I've been hired for weddings. It's great because the song has allowed me to get hired for weddings and make money that way and fill up some of my dates on my calendar that way. And I've done them full band. I've done them just where I fly out and sing the one song. So that's been great. And obviously that helps me make fans as well. But I feel like no matter where I go, when I play that song at a live show, there's always couples that get up, whether they've heard it or not, they get up and dance and they react to the song.

And there's some people that literally come to the shows and they're seeing me and then maybe they know me for something else. And I start playing that song and they don't realize it was me. Kind of the same thing as with the Chiefs fans in the videos. Like, I feel like that song goes over well anywhere. And people that haven't heard it, I feel like they can hear that song and go, you know, especially it works well with.

women of a certain age that are looking to find that love or maybe they're newly engaged or they've met that person and they want to get engaged sooner, they're about to get married or they're recently married, that's all good. But also works well with fathers of daughters, like hearing that side of it too. Like they remember, or they think about one day someone coming to ask for permission to marry their daughter or walking them down the aisle and things like that too. So you've kind of got the...

the wedding side, like the young woman wanting to get married, but also the father-in-law side of it as well.

ASG (34:55)
you became the face of singing for Tinder and the Chiefs I think the world would explode.

Blane Howard (35:01)
That would be great for me.

ASG (35:04)
This popped into my head at the very start and it's a little bit off topic, probably should have kept it to the end but do you think if the Chiefs made it to the Super Bowl this year again you would experience the same hype probably times more because it's going to be a three-peat.

Blane Howard (35:23)
Man, I don't know because if it was gonna be if there's a potential for a three-peat I feel like the other teams coming in to like watch them lose and I'm sure I don't know how much like you guys follow the NFL NFL over there I know that like the NFL is making a big push for it to be overseas and all that stuff but when the Patriots were really good and they were like especially like early 2000s people remembered them, but they kind of

didn't win for a while, but they were always really good. And people would tune in just to watch them lose or hope that they would lose. So those stretches, especially like Patrick Mahomes' first year when they beat us in overtime to go to the Super Bowl, everyone I knew was tuning in to watch the, hopefully watch the Patriots lose. And I feel like there will be a lot of people tuning in to watch the Chiefs hopefully lose because they don't want them to keep winning. So that would be, it'd be beneficial on that side. I feel like a lot more people would just be tuning in in general, like

I definitely see the further the Chiefs go in the playoffs, the more views the videos get. Like if it gets a million views in the first round, it might get two million in the second. And then by the time you get further into it, like if it's Super Bowl, you can definitely think about getting more views. I wonder sometimes too, if like the Taylor Swift effect of last year would be the same for this year. That I don't know, but.

If they make a push, especially if it's someone, like if they're playing the Detroit Lions who have never won a Super Bowl and everyone, think even the people that are their rivals would probably go, okay, they've never won one, they kind of deserve to win it. There'd be a lot of people on there hoping that Detroit would win, hoping that Kansas City would lose, but also everybody that's a Chiefs fan and all that stuff being on there as well. There could be a combination that could be really good. And obviously, like...

When I started last year, like on TikTok, I think I had about 8,000 followers. When I started on TikTok last playoffs and ended the playoffs at like 30 some thousand, 38,000. And it's continued to go up. up to another, I'm almost, I think I'm at like 58,000 now. So if it continues to go up, like obviously there's more followers to see it to begin with. So there's more people to share it in the first hour or so. So that's beneficial as well. So I don't know, I would like to think so.

ASG (37:44)
Yeah, I thought about it because something like in the last like week, a couple of weeks since I got in contact with you, I've been like following you and watching your account because you're always putting out the songs right before the Chiefs play in it. I always like to see how like it works compared to the one before because they're always then as you said waiting for them to lose. And I've just kept seeing your account grow and grow and the videos get more and more. And I I kept just something thinking like I need to get them now because there's a

Genuine this is whenever the Chiefs were still undefeated and it doesn't look like they're ever gonna lose Isaac there's a genuine possibility They get to the Super Bowl without losing he's gonna be way too big for me to ever speak to him There was a genuine thought in my head where I thought if you start singing songs to the opposite team and the Chiefs just aren't losing Like there's something's gonna click on there somewhere where you might end up being Taylor's wife

Blane Howard (38:26)
Nah.

I don't think it ever get that big. But no, and I love doing stuff like this because like I said, know, doing radio interviews and TV interviews are great, but they're usually five to 15 minutes. So like being able to have like a long form conversation with someone is always so much more fun to me because I get to talk about things other than just music too. So like that's always cool. But I mean, I would, it's never been interesting. Like the one, the first, she's won the first two games against the Ravens and Bengals, which are like

playoff adversaries we've played in last couple of years. And so like having that, like the video I put out, like the third week of the season, I would say half the likes and like shares that I'm getting on TikTok and Instagram are still from that video. But I'm constantly surprised that like I'll post a new video on Friday morning, because the Chiefs always do like the Chiefs fans do red Friday. So we wear our jerseys, we wear all our Chiefs gear on Friday. So kids wear it to school and people wear it to work, all that stuff.

So always post them on Fridays, but I'll post them like half the comments and likes and everything else will be from videos from a month ago. So I don't know if just posting a new video makes all these other people see the previous ones, because somebody will be like, they'll make a comment about the most recent game on a video from two months ago. And like they don't realize because to them, that's their first time seeing it maybe. it's just that's been really weird because I don't understand how any of the algorithm stuff works. I know that I need to post often in order to keep it.

going but yeah it's been it's been an interesting combination of like all of that going on for sure.

ASG (40:10)
such a weird world because there's a clip that I have that genuinely every day it's that it gets more likes every day than any of my new clips and I genuinely can't describe where it goes and it's the reason why I can't get rid of the what's annoying you this week segment because it's the first ever one where I just had a meltdown and I just sat and look at it sometimes like there's gonna be a day where this stuff's getting likes and I'm gonna have to just try and find something that's gonna mirror it

Blane Howard (40:25)
Hahaha.

ASG (40:39)
Cause everyday I put up a new clap and I'm like, right I put that up and like 20 minutes later I'm like shit I've got like 15, 20 likes so that's good. Look in, it's not even anywhere near the new clap, it's that old clap still being recycled, being sent to me every single week like I hope you're gonna put Watson Oynia this weekend to the show. I just don't understand.

Blane Howard (40:52)
I know.

Well, the good thing is that people that are seeing it for the first time are going to go click on your profile. And if they're seeing other clips of what's annoying you this week, like that's going to be another huge thing.

ASG (41:12)
Yeah, there's one thing I last thing I kind of want to talk to you about because I spoke to it with Richard but he is a lot older and he's been in the game a lot longer so he'd a different answer but you met we've talked about obviously coming out of the pandemic and social media being more important but we're now also on a stage where country music isn't really country music it's country pop country r &b type of genre and you're you still

Pretty heavily have that traditional style to your music. Have you found it hard to resist maybe trying to put the pop side into your music or has it been kind of this is what I know, it's what I've always done, there's no point changing.

Blane Howard (41:56)
I mean, it's definitely hard because it's hard when you I want to put out sometimes I want to put out something that's like super traditional sounding and you don't know how it's gonna go over and sometimes you play them at shows and Depending on the crowd it goes it might be great and then you play it somewhere else and the song doesn't do as well and you're more kind of what I call mainstream country songs Do better so it's just to me

The whole process that I've been trying to do lately is just write the best song possible, whether it comes out as really traditional or more modern sounding or whatever, just write the best song you can write in the moment. And if it ends up making the album, you produce it in a way that fits the song best. You want to have a cohesive sound for the album and for yourself. But also I don't want to make, I don't want to write a song that sounds like it should be modern and then make it.

super traditional sounding and it doesn't work. Same thing, I don't want to write something super traditional and then add all these drum loops or whatever else to it that's going to make it not sound that way. So with the last album that I put out, and there's a few songs that are kind of in between, but I also feel like so because of the kind of crossover of it all, bands like or artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seeger, the Eagles, like all these rock bands from the 70s and 80s that

they would be much more country now than they would be top 40 or pop or whatever. So many people have started listening to them as more country. So trying to have that influence as well has been nice. And like the last album I did, even though we made some of the songs sound modern or sound more mainstream, there's not actually anything computer generated on it. So like anything that sounds like a drum loop or whatever it may be is actually

a drummer playing an instrument to make it sound that way. So he like, somebody's digging through a box of stuff, what can we make to sound like, so it's an actual like analog instrument that someone's using to make it sound that way. So that's the way that I've kind of tried to keep the realness to it, while also trying to write songs that sound mainstream and also my voice.

can kind of make anything sound country. Like I can, I'm trained enough and I've done enough classical training, whatever else to where I can mimic that stuff. But if I just go out and sing like me on any song, it's gonna come out a little bit country anyway. So I kind of let that be the kind of country to it as well. I also feel like, and I tell this story sometimes of like people that call like today's country, not country, it's pop or whatever.

And I don't say that I disagree with that, but I remember when I was in college, because I grew up listening to like George Strait, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Venskill, Randy Travis, those guys from like the 80s and 90s that were just huge names, still huge names. And somebody, an older gentleman who was probably in his 50s or 60s when I was in college said, you know, what do you think of these new acts nowadays? And I was like,

You know, they're not really my cup of tea. prefer, you know, Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks and George Strait. And he was like, that's when I stopped listening. So like his generation thought that those guys were too modern and pop sounding and things like that. So I feel like, I don't know, I feel like every generation is going to like, there's going to be a generation like the kids that are 18 years old listening to people right now and 30 years are going to hear somebody country on the radio and think that it's too pop or whatever. So I don't know. It's, it's constantly changing.

But then you also see like guys like Zach Top, who's like, he's a bluegrass guy who started doing country and is very traditional sounding. And he's one of the, you know, fastest rising acts in country music right now. So I feel like there's, there's a little bit of both going on too.

ASG (45:55)
We've had the end, so if there's any of you that need a plug, do it now. Where can people find you?

Blane Howard (46:01)
Yeah, people can find me on my website, blainehoward.com or anywhere on social media, whether it's Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter or X or whatever it's called, it's all at Blaine Howard. All my music is available everywhere you stream your music. So Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora, all that stuff as well.