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They’re two-time Academy of Country Music Awards nominees this year, up for Vocal Group of the Year, as well as New Vocal Duo or Group of the Year, but the guys of Old Dominion will be the first to admit that their brand of country has been shaped by a wide variety of influences. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
- Old Dominion is currently soaring up the charts with their new hit, “Snapback,” the follow-up to their solid-Gold number-one smash, “Break up with Him,” both from the band’s terrific album, titled Meat and Candy.
- About “Snapback,” Nash Country Weekly writes, “it’s just so dang catchy that if you aren’t singing the ‘whoa-oh-oh-ohs’ by the third time, then you’re missing out on half the fun of this infectious ditty” — and in a tip of the hat to catching Old Dominion in concert, the magazine notes that the guys are “rapidly becoming one of the most fun bands in country music with a killer live show that gives fans a break from the stresses of everyday life.”
Old Dominion’s Trevor Rosen and Matthew Ramsey discuss some of Trevor’s influences. (:25)
Trevor: “Everybody. (laughs) I mean, really. I mean, I grew up in Detroit, so I have a lot of Motown influence, and Bob Seger, but I played in a rock band, and there’s that. I grew up listenin’ to anything from N.W.A. to some sappy ’70s love music. So, it’s all influenced me, but I think just anything with a good melody was what was really the most influential on me.”
Matthew: “Yeah, sweet melodies on N.W.A.”
Trevor: “They do! Dr. Dre, man. He was a good producer back even then. The beats and the melodies.”
Old Dominion’s Matthew Ramsey says that The Boss was his longtime musical hero. (:14)
“Bruce Springsteen was kind of it for me for a long time, and I grew up in a super-small town that there was country music everywhere, and I tried to avoid it, and you can’t escape it there, you know, when I was a kid and ended up falling in love with it.”
Old Dominion’s Matthew Ramsey says that he was exposed to a variety of music growing up. (:13)
“My dad played me all kinds of different music. He was into Motown, and he was into country, and he was into rock, and The Who, and you know, and then I grew up listenin’ to Pearl Jam and things like that. So I think all those things sort of filter into what we do.”