Old Dominion recently released a new four-song collection called Memory Lane (Sampler) so they stopped by The Bobby Bones Show to talk about their new music, answer listener questions and perform their first, last and recent hits!
There are five members that make up Old Dominion, so it can sometimes be hard to get everyone together with five different schedules. They have a text thread that is just the five of them to communicate schedules and send dumb jokes. They won’t send each other song ideas through the text thread and will save the ideas for their writing sessions.
The band recently released their new single, “Memory Lane,” a song about nostalgia and constantly visiting memories with an ex-lover. They played it for the first time on the show today (January 17.) They shared that the title of the song was in songwriter’s Jessie Jo Dillon’s phone and when they showed up for their co-writing session, they already had a guitar part that they really liked the sound and feel of. After messing around with it for a little, she threw out the title and someone said, “If I could buy a house on memory lane,” and it immediately sparked everyone and followed that idea until they finished the song.
Old Dominion answered some uncomfortable questions from listeners. Like, do they have a feud with any other country music band? They think they have one with The Cadillac Three. Lead singer, Matthew Ramsey, used to have the most expensive car out of everyone in the band, but he recently got into an accident with it. He hit a tree all by himself when the roads were snowy and icy. The final question: why did they become popular? They had the motto for years that the band was never going to work. They look back at some decisions they’ve made creatively, like their album of meow's they released in the summer of 2020, and they wonder too how they became so popular too.
They reflected on their first hit, “Break Up With Him.” When that song became a hit, to the world it seemed like they just happened over night. But there were years of trying to do it and not having success, it started to feel like it would never happen. Ramsey recalled how on the way to the number one party for the song, his uncle asked him if he thought it would ever happen. He replied yes, he had too or else he would’ve quit. But he was also in shock and couldn’t believe it. But they knew they had to believe in themselves, or no one would.
They also talked about their latest hit, “No Hard Feelings.” Ramsey learned to play the xylophone for that song. A custom one was made for him that only has the right notes on it that he needs to hit when he performs the song live. Before they had their own hits, they were writing songs for some of the biggest country artists. Brad Tursi recently co-wrote Keith Urban’s “Wild Hearts.” When he sent the song to Urban, he kept the chorus but re-wrote the verses to fit his story more when he recorded it.
When giving out superlatives to each other, they said drummer Whit Sellers is the funniest. Tursi is the biggest perfectionist of the group and is still trying to remix their first album. Who in the band is the latest? Ramsey said it’s up for debate within the group, but they all say member Trevor Rosen is. Ramsey is the most fashionable and Tursi is the most outwardly emotional.
Old Dominion performed their first hit "Break Up With Him,” their last hit at this moment "No Hard Feelings,” the song one of them co-wrote wrote for Keith Urban, “Wild Hearts,” and their newest song "Memory Lane.”
Their No Bad Vibes Tour starts January 19th and runs until June 30th.