Bobby Bones Was Hesitant To Share Real Life Experiences On The Raging Idiots’ Album

When Bobby Bones and the Raging Idiots released their first full-length comedy album, The Critics Give It 5 Stars, last month, the most talked about song from the project wasn’t a comedy bit at all… it was the touching and autobiographical song “Fishin’ With My Dad.”

The song’s story recounts Bones’ childhood dream to have a dad to fish and spend time with and then having his step-dad come into the picture and fulfill that dream. The track, which features background vocals from Garth Brooks, resonated with blended families across the country.

But had it not been for Brooks jumping in to record the song, “Fishin’ With My Dad” may have never seen the light of day.

“To hear Garth’s voice with my voice is pretty wild because I never wanted to put the track on the record. I really hadn’t,” Bones told Sounds Like Nashville. “That was never the plan. We wrote that and it wasn’t a funny song and it was a really personal song. I was like, ‘eh, this one doesn’t really fit the record.’”

Bones only kept the song as a request made by the head of Black River Entertainment, the record label he’s signed to.

“Gordon Kerr, who runs Black River, was like, ‘you should keep the song.’ So I said okay. He said, ‘Who would you sing it with, if you could sing it with anyone in the world?’  So I was just like ‘Well, Garth Brooks,’ because I knew Garth would never sing it with us. Let’s be for real,” Bones explained. “I came in about three weeks later and he was like, ‘Garth’s singing it. He’s going to have it back over to you. [He] thought it was great.’”

“It’s weird because not only do I sing it, but wrote it and it’s about my life, and then the greatest of all time is on there. So that’s weird. That was kind of an emotional moment for me,” he added.

Despite the emotional connection to the track, “Fishin’ With My Dad” wasn’t the one he dreaded releasing the most.

“I have one that I like the least. It’s ‘If I Was Your Boyfriend’ because it wasn’t written as a comedy bit,” shared Bones. “I actually wrote that for a girl, as a song, as a text message. Like ‘I’m going to definitely try and get this girl to like me.’ Then she never dated me and so whenever we were like, ‘should we cut this?’ And then, every time I played it, I was like, ‘this feels weird,’ because it wasn’t a bit. It was like my real life.”

Among the other autobiographical songs on The Critics Give It 5 Stars is “We Can’t Stand Each Other,” featuring Carrie Underwood (“I wrote it with my past relationship in mind”) and “She’s A 10, I’m A 2,” featuring Charles Kelley from Lady Antebellum (“It’s about when I finally got to date somebody that was really pretty”).

Bones will soon share more of his life when he releases his memoir, Bare Bones: I’m Not Lonely If You’re Reading This Book, on May 17.