Center Stage Magazine is proud and excited to premiere "Don't Wake the Dog," the third track on the new EP Honkytonk Generation from country music artist Trey Calloway. The song was co-written by Calloway, Phil O'Donnell and Wade Kirby and once you hear it, you're going to love it. A story song crafted by some of Nashville's most creative minds, it conjures up visual images that bring it to life in ways that only the very best of them can. If you like it, please share it and play it again. If you're anything like me, you'll play it several times. It's that good. The EP releases Friday, November 6th and is available to presave on Calloway's social media sites. You can be among the first to hear it in its entirety!
Following is an interview I recently did with Trey Calloway. You'll hear him talk about "Don't Wake the Dog," another recent single off the EP called "Left Hand," his upcoming Ryman Auditorium debut and so much more. Grab a beverage and get the scoop on one of Nashville's brightest rising stars.
I always enjoy talking with Trey Calloway. He checks every box for what makes a good interviewee. He's engaging, well-spoken, friendly and always finds something new and surprising to add to the conversation. My latest phone call with him was no different. It went well.
A quick rundown of Trey Calloway for those that are new to the artist would include him being a North Carolina native who now resides in Music City. He's a family man who has been taking stages all over the country by storm, all the while working hard as a songwriter behind the scenes. Those are the basics, so let's move on to what he's been up to these days.
Naturally we had to talk about "Don't Wake the Dog." More than anything I wanted to know where the idea came from and his thoughts on the finished product. I've already said I think it's one of his best ever and truth be told, when asked to pick a song from the track list for the premiere, I chose "Don't Wake the Dog" simply because it had the word "dog" in it. I'd never heard it before, but I sure do love dogs. You can only imagine how blown away I was when I actually heard it - it was so unexpected because I thought it was going to be something completely different. I now know, I picked the right one.
Calloway shared, "The song takes me right back to being 17, when you'd risk absolutely anything, including a protective dad and a double-barrel shotgun, just to spend a few hours with your first love. Writing this with legends like Phil O'Donnell and Wade Kirby was an incredible experience, capturing that nostalgic, heart racing thrill of sneaking around on a Friday night. It's a fun, rowdy look at the wild lengths we go to when we're young, reckless and completely head-over-heels. I can't wait for everyone to crank this one up!"
We moved on to his most recent single, "Left Hand," another tremendous selection from the EP. Giving some details about this track, Calloway said, "This was one of the ones I did not write. This is an outside cut. It was sent to me and Philbilly (the affectionate nickname Phil O'Donnell is known by) by Warner Chappell (the publishing company of Warner Music Group) I believe. The writers were Beau Bailey, Summer Overstreet, Will Weatherly and Ben Williams. If you look those writers up, they're quite pedigreed, they know how to craft a song. It felt like a Trey Calloway song from the get-go. I got to be the one that was lucky enough to record it. I'm a blessed man. God just keeps blessing me."
Since he didn't write the song, did he feel he could relate to it, or did he just think it was a great song in general? He answered, "Well, I'm married these days. I'm very happy, but I have been in the perspective of the main character of this song. I think most people can relate to it. I know so many people that have experienced letting somebody go, not realizing until it's too late that they let the wrong person go. There have been moments in my life where I've been the one doing the breaking up, and also the one that got broken up with, so I definitely understand the song. I think one of the things I am good at it is putting myself into the song, I guess you could call it acting, but for me, I really do feel the emotions. It just felt like my song even though it might not be the chapter of my life I'm in right now. I believe those lyrics when I sing 'em and I think that's a testament to how good and how well-written the song is."
So far the song has been very well-received. "It's streamin' like crazy," he exclaimed. "I'm playing it on every single show we play and people are just lovin' it. I'm really looking forward to playing in on November 7th at the Ryman." What's that? Did he just say he's playing at the Ryman? The Mother Church of Country Music in Nashville? He sure did. Let's backtrack a second and find out what that's all about, shall we?
It was already on my agenda to discuss this Ryman show, but he brought it up first, so I didn't even have to. On Saturday, November 7th at 8:00, Trey Calloway will be playing a longer-than-usual opening set (about 40 minutes) at the Ryman Auditorium as he opens for country music star Craig Morgan. It will be Calloway's Ryman debut and I'd say he's awfully thrilled about it. He put it best when he said, "The thing about it is it's like if nothing super gigantic ever happens for me, I think I can hang my hat on the fact that I did a lot of the things I set out to accomplish. Things just keep happening and we're working hard. It's just kind of in God's hands what's gonna happen. I just gotta keep workin' hard and recording great songs and talkin' to great people."
Well this person really likes talking to him and I told him it's crazy how his momentum keeps cranking up every time I do. He's flying in the hammer lane and nobody wants to stop and give him a ticket. Everyone wants to see where Trey Calloway is going to end up. The excitement is edging up toward fever pitch, I can feel it. He ever-so-humbly replied, "Thank you very much. We've been working hard and it's good to see that people are noticing."
So as for the Ryman, he continued, "I'm gonna play every song from the new EP and maybe a couple more." I then asked him, "So how did you land that gig? I love Craig Morgan." He said, "Craig and I have become pretty good friends over the past year or so. He has taken a vested interest in my music career and is helping me, along with some other great people like my manager Jerry. Craig's been pivotal in helping me accomplish a lot of my goals. It started off as buddies and then turned into business colleagues and now I'm gettin' the honor of opening up for him."
The accolades kept coming. "Craig is the same guy that he appears to be on social media or TV. He's the exact same guy. There's nothin' fake about him. He's very genuine, very kind and very direct. He's helped me with some things I needed to do with my music career. I try my best to listen to his advice because he's definitely somebody who knows what you should and shouldn't do in the music business. The way he serves the armed forces and he takes care of the Army, he's just a class act all around. I'm honored to call him a friend."
I was curious about Calloway's reaction when he learned he would be playing the Ryman. He told me his manager called him and asked if he was sitting down. He was and the news was delivered, and as you might expect, it was quite a moment. He was, and still is, incredibly grateful. While he isn't privy to many details of how it happened, he's just glad it did, and he also added that it was a situation where everything fell into place perfectly and the end result will put him on stage at the Ryman on November 7th. Once again, the humility with this artist is astounding. Calloway commented, "I've learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm not gonna question it too much. Something I've come to learn about Nashville is they say, 'It's not what you know, it's who you know.' I agree to an extent, but I'll also disagree because if you're doin' the right things, you meet the right people. I think the two go hand in hand."
He went on, "My whole career has felt like a series of scraping and clawing and scratching for everything I have, and a lot of hard work not just from myself, but a lot of the people around me. It's hard to describe, but some days you wake up in this business and you don't see anything tangible. The numbers are growin', the social media's growin', the streams are growin', but you don't see anything tangible. With the Ryman happening, it felt like all those years I walked by on my way down Broadway, lookin' up at the Ryman and goin' 'Hey, one day...' and it's finally happening. That's something tangible and you can say to yourself, 'Okay, this is makin' progress.' All of the sacrifices of being away from my family and my home, it pays off with stuff like that. I haven't made a Grand Ole Opry debut, but that's next on my list. The Ryman and the Opry have always been kind of the pinnacle for me as far as country music goes. I have the utmost respect for what those places represent and what they are. November 7th it's gonna be a dream come true."
Just throwing it out there to the universe, but my own prediction is the Grand Ole Opry won't be too far off after the Ryman. All the signs are pointing that way. I did share that with Calloway and he thanked me, but as always, he didn't allow it to sink in too much. He's a hard worker, a talented artist and he's ambitious, but he leaves a lot to his faith in God and his ability to up his game enough to be worthy of reaching the next level."Be patient and trust in the Lord and things will come when they're supposed to," were his exact words. He also said it was good to hear that I believed in him and sometimes just having someone say something like that helps him relax and enjoy the special moments as they show up. "You're never gonna get to do the first time you do something again. There's a country song in there somewhere." I thought the same thing. Get writin' Trey!
It seems there might be some packed interstates heading into Nashville from North Carolina and Ohio on November 7th. Calloway and his wife both have family members coming to the big Ryman debut, so if you're planning on being there, leave early to avoid delays and don't miss that opening act.
There were a few more interesting tidbits we talked about. He had a co-write recently with Frank Ray, he played The Music Row Freak Show at The Local for the first time in a long time and he's been "experimenting" with facial hair styles. We went into a lot of detail about all three, but time and space constraints are forcing me to pick one of these topics to include here. I decided on the facial hair.
That all started with me saying, "Let's talk about something kind of different. What's going on with your look lately Trey?" He laughed and I think he knew where I was going. I continued, "This is my observation. I've been looking at press releases and all the things over the last couple weeks and you had this full beard, you were going full outlaw. Then I noticed a video from yesterday and you kind of downsized the facial hair." He laughed again and responded, "I did. I do that sometimes. I just get tired of wearing one look and I wanna change it. I usually ask for forgiveness and not permission from my wife and I'll just do it. I'll say, 'Guess what? I did a thing.' She actually liked the goatee thing from the get-go, that's the thing I've got goin' on now. I wanted to do something different, but something a lot of people don't realize is keeping a beard looking good all the time, it's a lot of work."
Oh, don't I know. My own husband taught me that. I said, "I know it's not easy by all the whiskers in my sink from my husband trimming his beard." He answered, "You know exactly what I'm talkin' about then. The goatee is a lot less maintenance. It's more shavin', but I'm likin' this look. I may grow a beard back, who knows? I may be clean shaven one of these days too. I can't get down with the mustache though. I had it for a couple of weeks during Christmas last year and it just wasn't the right look. It seems like every guy is either rockin' the beard or a mustache now. I just wanted to do something in between, like 'I'm a little bit beard and I'm a little bit mustache." That's a country song right there too if you ask me.
All I had to say after that was, "Glad I asked the question because at least it won't be burning in my soul." He told me I was the first to ask and he was glad he got to share that breaking news with me. I confess, it's always fun to grab a true exclusive like that.
Late in the interview I learned that he and his wife just celebrated their second anniversary, which is so good to hear. They are a beautiful couple and I hope they celebrate many more together. His son just turned 12, to which he remarked, "I still feel so young to have a 12 year old son." To that I say, he's so lucky. He'll still be a young guy when his son graduates high school and continues on to do whatever he chooses. It'll be so appreciated in the not-so-distant future.
Finally, because we are Center Stage Magazine, what memorable moment in Trey Calloway's life did he feel like he really was "center stage?" He pulled the answer out of his back pocket in less than 10 seconds. "It's career-related," he shared. "My friends and I entered a radio contest. Speed Street is a big festival held every year in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's for Race Week for the NASCAR 600. We entered our band in the contest and we won. The grand prize was we'd get to open up for Pat Green at Speed Street in front of thousands of people. It was my first big deal kind of thing like that, which was great. We did our set and absolutely rocked it, and then it started to rain. Everybody had to leave because it was pourin' down rain and thunderin' and lightnin'. We got to play our set, but Pat Green did not get to play his. So we felt like the headliners that night. That was a time I really felt 'center stage.' That was really fun. We were the only ones to get to play that big old stage." He added that it was his first best memory of playing country music and he was only about 17 years old. I found that statement ironic considering the main character in "Don't Wake the Dog" is also about 17. How's that for a perfect ending?
Keep up with Trey Calloway on his website and social media. Drop him a line and tell him Center Stage Magazine sent you!
