Parker McCollum & Dustin Haney caught up with Billboard's Melinda Newman on the Winners Walk at the ACM Awards 2024.
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00:00 I'm with Parker McCollum and Dustin Headey, winners of Visual Event of the Year for Burn It Down.
00:06 Look, they already have their statue.
00:10 So, when you were writing the song, did you already have a visual in your mind,
00:15 or did that completely come from when you sat with Dustin?
00:19 You know, the visual part actually came as soon as we--
00:22 I wrote it with the Love Junkies, Hilary Lindsey, Liz Rose, and Lori McKenna.
00:27 They were in my house one day and I had said--I didn't have any ideas, I didn't have any melodies, I was fresh out.
00:32 And we sat around for about an hour and then all of a sudden I just started singing,
00:35 "Burn it down" over and over and over again.
00:39 And I was like, literally, if I'll use better, more appropriate language, I said,
00:43 "Let's burn this son of a gun down. Whatever we're about to burn down, let's burn it down dramatically."
00:49 And we wrote the song fairly quickly and it just kind of fell out of us.
00:52 The image was already in my head. I knew it was very easy.
00:56 The music video, we were going to go burn some stuff down and blow some stuff up.
01:00 So, the award is for my song, of the music video he made on my song.
01:06 So it's really his award. I truly mean that.
01:10 He's all the talent in it. I just had to walk around in the desert for about six hours.
01:15 So Dustin, talk about where your concept came in.
01:18 If he had said to you, "We're going to burn stuff down and blow stuff up," then you're like, "Okay, and?"
01:25 Yeah. Well, I mean, I always take from it the production, right?
01:28 I could feel the vibe in the song. The production was the thing that stuck out to me with that song.
01:33 Parker has such a unique voice and when it built in that track, that was the thing that resonated with me.
01:38 I was like, "Oh my God, this is a three-act deal."
01:40 It's like, we need to see Parker for everybody knows now and then we need to elevate into this next series.
01:46 That's when we did the smoke. And then I was like, "Obviously, there's a third act and it's fire."
01:51 So I kind of started piecing that together. But the song, it starts with that.
01:56 He's very generous to give me that compliment.
01:59 But when I hear it, I'm like, "Oh, there's three acts in the production. They already did the legwork of that."
02:04 How do we make that visually enticing and also show something that's next for the fans for his career, right?
02:11 Every fan I feel like watches that video is going to know whether they're going to see it at a show with Parker.
02:17 Go see a show with Parker if you like the video.
02:20 So it really is this almost 360-degree thing.
02:24 You're coming up with the song, you're coming up with the concept,
02:27 but you're also thinking about how does this concept work when you're performing it live.
02:31 I think I had five treatments from five different directors.
02:36 The only one that I read the entire treatment of was Dustin's because from the very beginning, I was just, "He got it."
02:42 He totally understood that it had to be over the top and blowing stuff up.
02:48 It's a passionate, aggressive, dramatic song that is expressing a very, very intense emotion.
02:56 His treatment was the only one that really was willing to take the risk to showcase that.
03:03 He's got all the talent in the world, so it was a no-brainer to have him run the show.
03:08 It's your second ACM Award.
03:10 Yes, ma'am.
03:11 What does that mean to you? Now you're a multiple ACM Award winner.
03:16 I don't know. I've got to think about it for a little while.
03:20 God's been really, really good to me and my family and my band and my crew and my team.
03:25 It's been really good to Dustin and his wife Maddie.
03:30 Growing up, dreaming about being a country music singer and then getting to stand here at award shows,
03:35 you watched as a kid and hold an award and get to perform and make big-budget music videos on major record labels
03:41 and big-budget albums on major record labels. I don't know. What else you want?
03:48 Nothing wrong with it, right?
03:49 Let's make big country again. Let's make big country again.
03:52 Bring the Cowboys back.
03:53 Let's talk about that. Country is having such a moment.
03:57 We saw Post Malone on this show. We saw Avril Lavigne on this show. We saw Dua Lipa on this show.
04:03 What do you think is going on? Why is everyone blocking the country now?
04:08 Country is kind of just the same. Hip-hop country is really what's exploding.
04:14 Traditional country music, songwriter country music is growing and is receiving a lot of exposure.
04:20 It's kind of a side effect from hip-hop country.
04:24 I would say hip-hop country is really getting the global attention and having everybody jump on the bandwagon.
04:30 I don't know if there's really anybody in the pop world or the rap world or anything
04:34 that's trying to put out a songwriter's old-school traditional country album. I haven't seen that yet.
04:41 The hip-hop country world is really exploding.
04:44 There's a few of us left that are trying to get that same attention on the real country music.
04:50 Authentic songwriting. Authentic storytelling songwriting.
04:54 You're carrying the flame.
04:56 Cody Johnson is carrying the flame. I'm just back there lighting the fuse.
05:00 Fuse lighter back here.
05:02 Thank you so much and congratulations.
05:04 - Thanks.
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