Dreams Do Come True

When country superstar Brad Paisley says he's taking you out on his tour as an opening act, you don't talk it over with your agent, you don't think about it -- you just do it. At least that was the case for musicians Dustin Lynch, Chase Bryant and Lindsay Ell, who all join Paisley for select dates on his "Weekend Warrior World Tour" -- including its stop at the Walmart AMP tonight.

"I remember learning how to play guitar to Brad Paisley music way back in the day, and he's actually one of my first concerts I ever got to go to," Lynch shares. "I've bought a lot of tickets to watch Brad as a fan so to get up there and actually be on stage with the guy now is really cool. If someone's asking you to come be direct support for their tour, it's a great compliment. You know they're a fan."

With the ultimate goal of an opening act being to hype the crowd for the headliner, Lynch feels his writing and his stage presence are just right for a good time.

"My world revolves around the live show, so that's what steers me as a songwriter," he says. When the music is happening right in front of you, "you can see the energy, and that's something you'll never be able to replicate if you're at the house listening. I think there's a connection that happens at live shows that doesn't happen anywhere else on earth -- the power of music and everybody kind of being on that same wavelength is so special. So that's what I'm really concerned about -- what's going to make people dance? What's going to make people absolutely not be able to sit down at our shows?"

"First off, forget about Dustin; nobody likes him. He gets all the girls, and that doesn't really matter. I mean, that's not really a big deal," Bryant adds, obviously teasing.

"Brad is, for me, one of those people you look up to -- he's an icon. He's somebody that you spend your whole life wondering how you can be at that level," the Texas native goes on. "It's hard to come out on stage at 24 years old and go, 'Whoa, this is happening.' I mean, I sat in my bedroom on my Panasonic CD player listening to the 'American Saturday Night' record, and it was like, this is what I want to do. I want to be in those shoes one day. So it's very hard for me to fathom that these things get to happen for people like me. Because that was just a kid from a town of 800 people where a lot of people said, 'This is never going to work; give up.' And now it's happening."

Just days before our chat, videos of Bryant performing his new song "Hell If I Know" had started surfacing on the Internet -- to Bryant's disappointment -- as fans keep an eager eye out for new music. The infectious number is Bryant's first official release since his 2014 debut EP that brought fans the hits "Take It on Back" and "Little Bit of You."

"I think it's my best body of work I've had at this point," Bryant says of the forthcoming album that he's determined to keep under wraps. "[I've] just been going in the studio and trying not to be self-indulgent on what I want to do -- it's more what fans have perceived me as and made me. Because I feel like your fan base really is what molds what you are as an artist. So with this record, I think I've kind of taken all the pressure off thinking too hard."

Less under wraps are Bryant's tour mates' new music -- with the first two singles "Seein' Red" and "Small Town Boy" from Lynch's third studio album (out next week) already doing well, and Ell's debut studio album, "The Project" (out Aug. 11), landing impressive numbers on the charts in its first week. Celebrated for her mastery on the guitar, Ell says Sugarland's Kristian Bush -- who produced the record -- got her out of her comfort zone for "The Project" with his confidence in her vocal chops as well as her skills on the instrument.

"I feel like I've finally found out who I am as a musician and what I want to say and how I want to say it," Ell says of the album. "Sometimes finding that artistic voice is a really hard thing to do. That's why I wanted to call the album 'The Project,' because I felt like these past eight months have been like a science project in a way.

"I think the quality [of music] female artists are making right now is just so great," she adds. Ell wrote or co-wrote nine of the 12 songs on the album, but she says she is proud to showcase fellow female songwriters from Nashville in those three outside cuts: "I definitely am all about this girl power movement right now." And Ell says her experiences -- professional as well as personal -- over the last few months are lending to a conversation about "music being judged on its own merits. But it also [gives] light to women in male-dominated industries. At the end of the day, music is music and if you can find the right way to get that music to listeners and to perform it in a way that it connects with them, then I consider that a job well done."

NAN What's Up on 09/01/2017