Oh, to have been in this Nashville bar – Tim McGraw played a show in Nashville before the CMA Awards last week, warming up his band and working out some of his new songs. How did it feel? According to Tim, “Anytime you get to play new music, it energizes you. And playing new stuff, and knowing I’ve got an album coming and knowing it’s sort of a new day in my career, I was really energized.”

Little Big Town is delighted to have their first CMA wins in their decade-long career, and think that the success of “Pontoon” might lie in the mystery in the lyrics: “Who would’ve thought that ‘Motorboatin’’ would be up for Single of the Year, you know? But that’s how big an impact, I guess, it’s had with the fans and with people. People want to have a good time.” Ok, so if that’s the case, then their follow-up single, “Tornado,” should be a success because – people want to have a bad time? “It’s so much fun to sing, I mean the writers—they’re the ones that—they paint the picture of ‘thought you’d change the weather, start a little storm, make a little rain, I’m gonna do one better, hide the sun until you pray [laugh]—I’m a tornado’. I’m that kinda sets the whole scene of what’s to come.” Yeah, you don’t want to get on the bad side of that storm!

A little news broke on the red carpet last week – Jake Owen and his wife Lacey will name their daughter Pearl, after his Godmother, who passed away in July. Jake already has her name tattooed on his left wrist. Pearl should make her debut sometime this month.

Hunter Hayes is psyched to be Carrie Underwood’s opening act on the second leg of her “Blown Away” tour. He had a great time on the first leg, saying, “The crowds have been really cool. They’re showing up early. You know, and as an opening act it means a lot. And it’s really cool to be like direct support, you know, be right in front of Carrie and to get that slot and for her to say that I’m sort of worthy of that slot...it’s awesome and it’s really cool for her to say, ‘Hey, come back out next year! We’re doing some more.’” Probably didn’t hurt for him to win New Artist of the Year at the CMAs last week, with Carrie hosting!
You can’t see it until this weekend, but Eli Young Band went in a very different direction for the “Say Goodnight” video. “For the video, we could have very easily gone in more of a romantic love story kind of direction, but we chose to go science fiction with it. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of what you think it would be when you’re listening to the song.” Why science fiction? Oh, heck – why not? CMT will air it this weekend. 
Kellie Pickler has a bone to pick with the media – Summer, the woman with breast cancer that Kellie shaved her head to support, is more than a friend: “It’s so weird for people to call her my best friend, because she’s not my best friend – she’s my sister. We’ve never referred to each other as friends – ever. She’s always been my sister Summer. So it is weird. She actually brought that up to me and goes, ‘It’s so weird to see headlines and people say were best friends because I feel like that’s an understatement.”