MusicRowPics: Dylan Scott’s Long Road To Radio

Dylan Scott

Don’t be surprised if you hear an abundance of love songs on Dylan Scott’s self-titled album from Curb Records. Scott, who in May will celebrate his first wedding anniversary to his high school sweetheart Blair, says his wife has been the inspiration for most of the tracks from his upcoming project.

“We’ve been together since I was 15 and she was 16. I’ve been with her longer than I’ve been writing songs, so a lot of my songs are love songs.”

His current chart-climbing single, “My Girl,” is one of those inspired tracks.

“She’s really shy, but we were driving around and she started rapping an Eminem song word for word. Later I was writing, inspired by that moment, and I made the song about all the things that I see in my girl that nobody gets to see but me.”

The song’s imagery creates a picture of a ballcap wearing, music-loving southern girl who holds strongly to her family and her faith. He says he did take one creative liberty with the song.

“The only line that is not true about her is a line about drinking Crown and Sprite. She doesn’t drink Crown and Sprite, but it rhymed really well.”

Dylan Scott with MusicRow staffers.

Musical talent runs in the family for this Louisiana native. His father played guitar with Freddy Fender and Freddy Hart back in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Following in his father’s musical footsteps, Scott first began making trips to Nashville as a teenager, when he met Nashville executive Howard Fields.

“He told me, ‘I’m going to try to get you a record deal in six months. If I don’t, you don’t have to sign anything with me, go do what you want to do. I remember driving around in my truck In Louisiana and he called and told me I had two label offers, one from Warner Music and one from Curb Records. I’m a huge Tim McGraw fan, and I grew up about 30 minutes from where he’s from. I’d look at the back of a Tim album and would always see Curb Records. So it was like, ‘Is this really happening?’ when I signed with Curb. So when I met with them it just felt right so I signed with them.”

At age 19, Scott signed a recording deal with Curb Records’ now defunct subsidiary Sidewalk Records. When Sidewalk shuttered, Scott was transferred to Curb Records. Last year, Scott first hit the Top 40 with the single “Crazy Over Me.” He says the long road to radio success has been a blessing in disguise.

“It’s been a huge blessing though that it’s taken six or seven years to get music out, because who I was then is not who I am now. The music I recorded then, was me trying to figure out who I was. I’m a huge Keith Whitley fan so when I moved to town, I was like, ‘I’ll be the next Keith Whitley.’ But you get to town and you are intimidated because there are so many great artists in this town. So I didn’t know who I was at the time. You get in there and start writing and you get on the road and start playing music and you find out who you are.”

Last year, Scott performed more than 130 shows, after wrapping an opening slot for Lee Brice’s Life Off My Years tour. In between gigs, he’s been crafting his 13-track, self-titled album for Curb Records. The album was produced by his longtime songwriting and producing friend Matt Alderman, alongside Curb Records’ Chief Creative Advisor Jim Ed Norman.