Old Dominion Ponder Valentine’s Day Record, New Music & More

Old Dominion are currently spending time on the road with Miranda Lambert after wrapping up their highly successful Meat and Candy headlining tour. Sounds Like Nashville caught up with the band while in Mexico during Luke Bryan’s Crash My Playa 2017 where they filled us in on new music, comically debated the idea of making a Valentine’s Day record and reflected on their busy 2016.

Last year saw the band garnering their second No. 1 single with “Song For Another Time” off their 2015 debut Meat and Candy. After years of writing for other artists and now having two No. 1 songs of their own as a band, the radio success continues to help them as their audience is getting both bigger and louder on a nightly basis.

“Last year was so crazy, and we had a nice break for the holidays and we just started ramping back up,” guitarist Brad Tursi says, settling into a chair outside their trailer backstage before their festival performance. “We have a new set, new lights, and we’ve been rehearsing, working on a new record, getting ready for a new tour, everything is kind of beginning.”

While the band are tight-lipped on their next single, they say it will be the lead track off their forthcoming sophomore album. Ramsey describes the album as “different” than their first release and while he wouldn’t go into too much detail, he did say they’ve been testing out the new material on the road.

“Some of ‘Meat and Candy’ was from the EP that we recorded . . . ‘Nowhere Fast’ the recording of that is probably at this point five years old,” Ramsey says. “So you can’t play 200 shows a year for three years and not change as a band. I think it’s just a natural evolution of the sound of a band as they play and play and play and write and write and write. It’s nothing that I can quite put my finger on but definitely different.”

One new song the band played during their main stage set at Crash My Playa was the upbeat and radio-friendly “Be With Me” where Ramsey asks, “Why won’t you be with me” alongside smooth production and keyboard features. A successful introduction to new music, Old Dominion had the beachfront audience screaming along. Later, they’d play another new track called “There’s No Such Thing As a Broken Heart.”

“We’re very excited about this song because it’s all about love. There’s no such thing as a broken heart,” Ramsey said introducing the feel-good track that name drops John Mellencamp’s “Jack & Diane.”

“Cause you can’t keep the ground from shaking no matter how hard you try / You can’t keep the sunsets from fading… You gotta love like there’s no such thing as a broken heart,” Ramsey sings on the laid-back love song.

Speaking of love, as Valentine’s Day was approaching we had to ask the band if they ever wrote a song for a girl in time for the holiday. While there were four resounding no’s, Tursi admitted that the first song he ever wrote was on Valentine’s Day.

“That sounds like you,” Ramsey quips as the rest of the band laughed.

“It didn’t even have a title, it was just like a song called ‘It’s Valentine’s Day and I love you,'” Tursi recalls of the song he wrote when he was 15. “It went over pretty good!”

While Ramsey said the idea of writing a song specifically for Valentine’s Day was a good idea, the other band members mused at the thought. They reasoned that they’d garner some big crowds on Feb. 14. Their conversation then segued to recording a Valentine’s Day record, manufacturing Old Dominion-themed lingerie and maybe a Speedo to sell at the merch table.

As the guys continued to brainstorm new merchandise, we asked if one Valentine’s Day was most memorable when Ramsey began to tell us about a time he chose the wrong movie for the occasion.

“You know I’ve never had any kind of bad Valentine’s Day, really,” Ramsey admits. “I did see a terrible movie one time, not what I thought from the title. It was a Leonardo DiCaprio movie, ‘Revolutionary Road.’ It’s a really dark movie. It was Leonardo and Kate Winslet, so I was like, ‘Oh Titanic people, that’ll be a good Valentine’s Day movie.'”

The film itself details an unhappy marriage and Ramsey said that he and his wife were relieved when it was over and he apologized profusely.

“She forgave me,” he says with a smile.

As our interview came to a close, he offered up some wise advice for those planning a movie night this Valentine’s Day: read the film’s description before expecting a romantic movie night at home.