Country music singer Jake Owen is set for a show next month at Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, but he doesn’t really consider himself a betting man — other than his initial move to Nashville to chase his country music dreams.
“Shoot, the only thing I’ve ever really gambled on is the chance of leaving college and trying to make it in the music business,” Owen said. “I feel like I hit blackjack with that, because there’s a lot of people that lay their cards down on the table, and for some reason it worked out for me, and I’m real grateful for that.”
The gamble to leave Florida State paid off for Owen, who has racked up 10 No. 1 singles on country radio, including songs like “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” and “Beachin’.”
His latest album, 2025’s “Dreams to Dream,” may be a departure from the mainstream country radio style he’s known for, but he’ll be playing most of those aforementioned No. 1 hits on Aug. 15, when he visits the Events Center at Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh’s North Shore.
Although Owen said he didn’t have many Pittsburgh connections, the one he mentioned is a pretty big one.
“Well, my buddy Aaron Rodgers is hopefully going to take you guys to a Super Bowl, I’m hoping,” Owen said. “I’ve got a lot of friends that are all Pittsburgh guys, and I get to watch them wave their towels around their head every year. I have a lot of respect for people that have that deep of an affinity for their team and the tradition.”
Owen said he became friends with Rodgers over the years during celebrity golf tournaments (Owen placed 19th at the American Century Championship earlier this month in Nevada).
“When you get them off of their normal so-called football field, golf’s an equalizer so I feel like we all get to know each other in that aspect,” Owen said. “It’s been cool to get to know those guys, but Aaron has been a good friend to me and those guys. I’m always pulling for him and can’t say I’ve ever pulled for the Steelers, just not being from there or anything, but now that he’s there, I find myself pulling for you guys.”
In a recent call from Nashville, Owen spoke with TribLive about his show, his latest album and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.
For this show, what can people expect out of it?
For years, I’ve really prided myself on having a good time and making sure people are entertained. I think a big part of live shows is the entertainment factor. Anybody can go sit in front of a microphone and sing you songs and if they wanted to just sit back and listen to someone deliver the song, they could probably just do that in their car or at the house. But I’ve always been somebody that’s prided myself on combining great music with good entertainment value. For a lot of years, we’ve really worked on our show being that level of entertainment. I like to think that people come to our show, even if they’ve never seen it before and they go, wow, that was really entertaining. That guy is having a lot of fun up there, and they’re making us have a good time.
How about with the setlist? Is there going to be a lot of the new stuff on there? Is it gonna be heavy on older songs?
I’ve been lucky enough throughout my career — I’ve had 10 No. 1 songs. So it’s kind of hard to play shows and not do the songs and hits that everybody knows. But I throw some new stuff in there. I’m also not the guy either that’s going to go play a bunch of new stuff that nobody knows. I’ve been to plenty of concerts where the artist is way more excited about their new music than the actual audience is. (laughs) So you know how those shows go, right? I’ve never been that guy. Like I said, I focus on making sure people have a great time. In order to do that, I want to make sure that they get what they came for.
Your latest album, “Dreams to Dream,” came out last year so what do you feel is different about that one compared to past records?
It’s definitely something that was intentionally meant for me more than it was for my audience. I can’t say that prior albums felt that way. It seemed like when I was part of the big national machine of putting music out commercially on the radio, that you really strategically choose and record songs that will work on the radio and will connect to an audience in a way that’s more commercialized. That’s just part of the game. Lots of people out there are putting out great music, but it may not necessarily always fit the so-called standards of what radio is looking for as commercialized music. So any of us that have been lucky enough to have songs on the radio, much less go No. 1, is an awesome thing. So I’m super grateful for all my time at country radio, and I still aim for that.
But this record in particular was really more or less a passion project for me of speaking the truth on where I’m at in my life, things I’ve gone through. It gave me an opportunity once I left my label Big Loud to go, so I self-funded it and did it myself. I didn’t have anybody. The problem with sometimes wanting to make a passion project like that is that if a label knows that they’re not going to get a big return on it, they’re not going to be too high on wanting to push an artist actually doing that. If they’re going to invest in it, they want to see a big return. And for me, I didn’t really care about the return at all. I just wanted to make great music and be fulfilling to myself. So anyhow, I’ll definitely play some off that record, for sure. But it wasn’t something that was meant to really blend in too much to everything else I’m doing.
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Was it daunting then to take on a completely different sound than what you’re known for?
No, actually, it felt like the freedom that I’ve never felt before and quite frankly, working with Shooter Jennings out in L.A., which is so far from Nashville, it was like removing myself from this big so-called pool I’ve been swimming in with a bunch of other big fish and going out and immersing myself into a world that I hadn’t. Quite frankly, sometimes getting outside your comfort zone and getting into an uncomfortable situation can bring out the better side of you that you didn’t think you had in you. It always takes somebody else believing in you. I felt there were times where Shooter really lifted me up and applauded me in ways that I don’t think I was applauding myself.
That’s part of the beauty of touring and being an artist, when I first left college for Nashville, I had the utmost confidence and belief in myself that I was going to do all this, and I did. I think that it stems from confidence and then through the years, opinions and critical reviews, it doesn’t matter, you put music out because you love it, but then there’s always going to be people, writers, whatever, they’re going to tell you why they don’t like it or why Jake’s career is not going the way it should. The more you start reading that stuff, it does chip away at you, whether anybody will admit it or not. The honesty is, as we all grow older, we start protecting ourselves more. So it’s really cathartic and feels good to let all that go and just say I don’t care what happens. I don’t care what people think. I care what makes me happy, and that’s what felt good about going and making this album. Now I can get back to what I’ve also loved too on the other side of the fence, which is making great radio-style songs and things like that.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source community.triblive.com ’
