Interview With Lonestar's Dean Sams 4-7-08

DMN - Hey Dean, how’s it going?

DS – It’s going great.  We’re just standing on a rooftop here in Nashville shooting the video for our new single, Let Me Love You and I’m doing interviews between performances!

DMN – What were some of your first jobs before getting into the music industry?

DS – Oh Lord!  I waited tables forever!  Probably the place where I made the most money was a place in Addison, TX called ‘The Magic Time Machine’.   It’s a place where all the waiters and waitress’ were characters.  You could pick your character and you had to dress in costume.  They literally had a school bus inside this restaurant and inside this bus there was a table for 15.  They also had a huge crayon box that you could eat inside of and they had a tiki hut; it was very theme orientated.  I was in character as ‘The Greatest American Hero’ from the TV series; do you remember that series?  Believe it or not, I’m walking on air!  And I was also dressed as G.I Joe.  Those were my two characters.  I also worked at Opryland for a few years and the last job that I had before moving to Nashville, TN. Was operating a 100 lb jackhammer all day long.  So, I totally love what I’m doing now. 

DMN - What is your favorite song to perform?

DS – There are so many and I love them for different reasons.  I guess the one that night after night never ceases to amaze me, no pun intended, would have to be ‘Amazed’.  Just the reaction of the crowd singing every word amazes me.  It was the song that really took our career from being a pretty successful band to what some people have called a supergroup.  I feel pretty weird hearing that word.  It was the song that took us over the top, for sure. 

DMN - What was the first song that you learned on the keyboard and how did you get interested in playing keyboard?

DS – I can tell you the exact song that I first learned.  The song was ‘Stranger In My House’ by Ronnie Milsap.  I started playing keyboards when I was 18 years old.  I always thought I was going to be a professional football player.  I started playing football when I was a real little kid, like 5 or 6 years old, and that is all I ever dreamed of doing.  I had some real opportunities that really made me think I could do it.  But, for reasons that I won’t bore you, I wasn’t able to play football my senior year of High School so that meant no scholarships and no college for me.  I had to find another elective to do instead of football.  My best friend, who was in choir, told me ‘hey man, you should get into choir’.  I said I’m not going to do that with all you sissies! He said ‘hey man, there are girls and we get to go on trips!’  That’s all I needed to hear!  I jokingly signed up for choir and I sat down at the piano.  My favorite song was ‘Stranger In My House’ and I don’t know how, but I could play it.  I really don’t know how because no one in my family is musical but I could.  I think it was just the man upstairs trying to lead me down this way. 

DMN – What is your musical rig consist of?

DS – From a touring standpoint, my rig consists of a Yamaha Motif 8.  They have had two new updates since my Motif 8 came out.  There were an ES model and an EX model.  But I still play my Motif 8.  It was the first one that came out, but I think it was the best.  To me, Yamaha puts out a great product.  They constantly put out the best of the best.  That‘s what I play on the road.  I also have a Roland AX1 called a Keytar which is hooked up to the Yamaha Motif rack.  You can pretty much make any sound with it but I primarily use it for organ and some electric piano stuff. 

DMN – How did you form Lonestar and you settled with the name how?

DS - Well I formed Lonestar 15, almost 16, years ago.  Basically, I moved to Nashville and had done everything but music and I decided that I wanted to do something in that direction.  I decided to put a band together and so I gathered the troops and I booked us shows.  I booked 500 dates the first two years that we were together; that means that we averaged 250 dates per year travelling in my two door Jeep Cherokee pulling a U-Haul.  When I first put the band together we were called ‘Texassee’.   We were all from Texas but I met everyone in Tennessee.  You throw the two states together and that’s what you get.  Two and a half years later, we got a record deal with BMA Records and our label said ‘that’s name is not working; you have to come up with something else’.     There is a famous songwriter named Costas who had written so many great hits for other artists.  He suggested since we’re all from Texas, how about Lonestar.  We did a name search and ended up being able to use the name. 

DMN – What is one of your favorite road stories?

DS - Oh gosh!  That’s tough to narrow down.  Are we talking clean stories?  I’ll tell you a funny story.  Country music fans are so great.  When they are into you, they are into you 100% no matter where they come from.  They could be way out in the country in the sticks to being from the big city and just love country music they are truly into what you are doing.  Years ago, when we used to sign autographs after every show, we had a lady who lived on a farm come through who had us sign some stuff and she brought a picture to show us.  She had chickens named after each one of us.  I just remember her telling us that story and I saw the look on everyone’s face.  We were trying not to laugh!  It was cool but at the same time how do you tell someone thanks for naming chickens after us?  It was pretty neat so that’s a story that I remembered for many, many years.

DMN – How did Rich decide to leave the band and go solo, what was the demeanor of the band and how did you find Cody Collins?

DS – I think it was about March of last year that Richie told us that he wanted to go solo.  He actually sent out an email to all of us saying that he was going solo and he’d stay with the band through November 7^th which was his last show with us.  When he told us, we went through the whole gamut of emotions like this is terrible; I can’t believe he’s doing this to us; all the anger; to kind of a sense of empowerment thinking we can move on and keep this train rolling.  This wasn’t territory that we haven’t been down before.  John Rich of Big n Rich was in this band.  When he left, everyone had said that we were done and of course, thankfully, we went on to sell 10.5 million records and have 10 number 1 singles.  We knew it could be done but we had to find the right guy.  That was the decision that we made.  Michael, Keech and I decided that we still had a lot of music left in us and being honest, we didn’t want the remembrance of us, the legacy of Lonestar, to be left with some of the music that we put out over the last few years.  It was stuff that we, collectively, did not want to do.  It was stuff that Richie wrote and he wanted to say as a singer but it wasn’t necessarily what the band wanted to say.  So we felt that if we were going to go out, we should go out on our own terms with music that we wanted to do.  The first key component was to find a great singer.  I produce music as well and I was working with a girl who was in a house band in a club called ‘Cowboys’ in Kennesaw, GA.  I went down to support her at a show and out walks Cody Collins.  He came out and did his set and just blew me away.  Not just with his incredible voice but the way he portrayed himself on stage.  He really had confidence and really sold the line of each song.  We began a friendship and we started talking about me producing something for him.  But life got a little too busy and I wasn’t able to do anything for him for about a year.  It was about that time that I got the news from Richie and Cody was the first person I thought of.  I directed Michael and Keech to his Myspace page so they could hear him and see what he looked like and he quickly became the guy to beat.  We received literally thousands of entries of people who wanted to take the position but Cody was just the guy.  We brought him to town for a small 6 song showcase for all the people that were important in our career (booking agency, management, publicity) and everyone agreed that we weren’t going to find anyone better than him.  They thought he was amazing.  So we took him on and partnered up with the good folks at Cracker Barrel and put out a Christmas record.  Now we have a brand new single called ‘Let Me Love You’; released on Lonestar records and a new album will be released in September and it’s called ‘The Future’.  Today is the official Ad day of our new single and it already hit the Country Ad Chart at #51, four weeks early!  It’s doing real well.  We haven’t had that kind of chart success with the past few singles.  It’s really good to see that people are getting behind us. 

DMN - Did Richie have any input regarding his replacement?

DS – No, he had nothing to do with it.  Once he decided to leave the band his input had ceased with this band.  He was focusing on his solo career and we were focusing on keeping our Lonestar fans happy and us happy as a band.  Michael, Keech and I just moved forward and made all the decisions to put us where we are now.  So far it has been working out great and the fan reaction has been incredible.  We have a website, lonestarnow.com, that people have hit quite recently and I have taken over our Myspace page and increased it from 30,000 friends to 60,421 in just a few months.  If you look at our single, Let Me Love You, there are 375,000 listens or more to our single!

DMN - Out of those 60,421 friends on Myspace, who gets in your top friends list?

DS – Well, I took over the page and I change it out periodically.  It’s tough with so many pages to rotate it and keep it spread out but we have mostly girls on there and that’s why you see mostly girls on our top friends

DMN – Does your set list change through you tour or do you keep it the same every night?

DS – Well, our show pretty much what or show is.  We have only been doing our show now for a few months and we’re going back in rehearsal in May before we get really busy in June and revamping it again.  We have bought a whole new set this year and added a whole new lighting production and little things that will keep this band on top other than having great music.  Like I had mentioned earlier, we have been so lucky to have 10 #1 hits and sold 10.5 million records so we have a lot of hits to draw on and we have a whole lot of great new songs that we have been working on.  We give our fans a lot of music in our show. 

DMN – Talk to me a little about your involvement with Adopt-A-Platoon organization.

DS – Well Adopt-A-Platoon is a great organization that we hooked up with over the Christmas Season while we were on our Christmas tour.  Basically we hooked up with them to bring awareness to the program they have going on and to really help some soldiers get some things and let them know that Lonestar really supports them and all the efforts they are doing.  It was a great partnership.  We were able to send over money and a lot of great items that they would otherwise not have over the Christmas holidays.  But basically it was to let them know that we support them and all their efforts.