Jason Aldean wants you to love him or hate him. No exceptions.
"I don't want there to be any in-between," he told Radio.com. "I think one of the worst things somebody can say is, 'Yeah, it's OK.' That means it has done absolutely nothing for you. I want it to hit a nerve one way or another. If you hate it, you'll be talking about it, and that's all I want."
In case you didn't understand him, you are pretty much not allowed to be lukewarm here.
"At that point it has done absolutely nothing for you, and it has done absolutely nothing for my career, and it's a waste of time," he said.
Known as sort of a gruff dude with more of a devil-may-care attitude than some of his bro-bot contemporaries, Aldean also found the time to share his origin story.
"I started playing clubs at 14, and by the time I was 21, I moved to Nashville," he said. "I didn't think about a plan B. That never really crossed my mind. Once you're a musician it's not something that you just one day go, 'Oh, I'm not going to do that anymore.' You can always play in a bar somewhere. You can always find an outlet to play music, whatever it is. I always knew I was going to do it some way. I didn't necessarily know it was going to be on this level. The ultimate goal was I wanted to make a living doing it."
But middle Tennessee is not a perfect town. Aldean recently divulged that Nashvegas is teeming with witchcraft.
"It's the curse of Nashville," he said. "Luke [Bryan] has become a major star here in the last couple of years, and it seems like every damn artist who comes out now has got a damn baseball cap on or a hat turned around backward, trying to cop his vibe. Florida Georgia Line is killing it right now -- and the next thing you're going to see is a bunch of duos coming out, all tatted up.
"In my case, when 'Hicktown' [his 2005 debut single] came out, there was really nothing like that out there. People saw a hat act that comes out and looks like a country singer, but it's straight rock stuff -- well, then there's a wave of that stuff. If the people that run the record business in Nashville find something that works, they will run it into the ground."
Sounds like Aldean is in the gray area, huh? Mixed feelings about the town that made him a star. Without definitive love or hate for Nashville, we have no choice but to call Jason a hypocrite.
