Ronnie Dunn’s ‘Damn Drunk’ Features a Familiar Voice

Early on in the career of Brooks & Dunn, the duo was encouraged to write as much of their material as possible. In fact, Ronnie Dunn told Sounds Like Nashville that they were hardly ever pitched any songs. One of the first songs they cut outside of their own pens was their cover of B.W. Stevenson’s “My Maria.” While that song is now identified as one of their signature hits, Dunn says he wasn’t too keen on recording the song for their 1996 album Borderline.

“I thought it was a little too progressive, even though I had listened to the song and knew it when it was out,” he said. His famous notes on the song’s chorus give one the impression that the song was tailor made for them. “Over the years, people have been conditioned to think that [it was one of ours]. It’s actually one of the easiest songs for me to sing. People will always ask ‘How do you sing that song?’ But, it’s a part of your voice that isn’t fatigued as much.”

Dunn was making the Nashville media rounds last week to talk about his new single for Nash Icon, “Damn Drunk.” It’s his first new single in close to a year, and he’s pumped to have new product out for his fans.

“I’m definitely excited about it, and being over here at Big Machine / Nash Icon and with this bunch,” he said. “I tried the independent route, and learned that it takes a team around you. There’s no place in town I’d rather be.”

From a stylistic level, the song reminds one of B&D’s classic from 2002, “The Long Goodbye.” Dunn is quick to give credit to the track’s producer, Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus, for the feel of the single. “That has a lot to do with the sonics, and how sounds and technology are today. We can open records up. Jay was real good about that. When his name was brought up as a producer, we were looking for a little something different, but not too much. I just kind of walked in, and wasn’t sure how it was going to work. I thought it would be a grand experiment.” As it turned out, the partnership worked well. “We started up thinking we would do about two or three songs, but ended up doing almost the whole record together.”

Unlike the bulk of his prior catalog, Dunn didn’t have a hand in writing the single, leaving this one to Liz Hengber, Alex Kline, and Ben Stennis. He said the song selection process for the upcoming album was deep. “I listened to thousands of songs – all day long, every day. (Big Machine A&R rep) Allison Jones would come over to the barn with songs, and we’d stack them up this high. I’d listen as long as people were there, and then I’d stay up late at night, too.” He admits he just kept coming back to the unique lyrics of the song.

“It just jumped out to me. I like the title and the comparison where the guy tells the girl if she was a whiskey, he’d be a damn drunk. He’d drink all he could of her. As a songwriter, I will hear something like that and think ‘Man, I wish I had written that.”

Dunn admitted that he typically has three stacks he puts songs in once they are pitched to him. “There’s a ‘No,’ ‘Maybe,’ and a ‘Yes.’ I just keep having to pull them one from the yes file until we get down to ten or eleven songs,” he says regretfully, but adds “It’s top-shelf material, which surprises me at this point. When you’re pitching songs on Music Row, you want to try to get them to the guys who are on the radio, but I’ve got good stuff.”

When you see the video for “Damn Drunk,” you might be in for a little bit of a shock, with Dunn sporting a cowboy hat! He says that was a product of the weather. “That’s mother nature’s fault. We went to Santa Fe, and the wind kicked up to about 30 miles per hour with gusts up to 40, and I said ‘We’ve got to shut it down.’ I can’t talk walk down the road in the middle of Georgia O’Keefe’s ranch, and just get blasted.” Enter the hat! “Someone had one, and we had no choice. We were only there for one day, so game on,” he says with a laugh. “I looked pretty goofy, but I do wear one every now and then. I’ve got a closet full in the house, and [my wife] Janine will make me take them off.”

There is another bit of familiarity to the new single – the harmonies of longtime partner Kix Brooks. “We were kidding around in Vegas, and I was playing him the roughs. I told him to go put some harmonies on it, and he was gracious enough to do that.”

He says things are a lot different now than the “Good Old Days,” but that doesn’t mean the glory days of the duo were bad… just busier than either ever realized. “It’s just sitting and having a conversation. It’s not uncomfortable. You might expect it to be a little bit odd, but it’s not. We’ve been travelling together the past few years, hanging out, and playing Vegas together. I think that our friendship is tighter now than ever. We took off as Brooks & Dunn with four number ones in a row, and never looked back. We really didn’t get a chance outside of the business realm to enjoy life that much. We would come off the buses, and he would go to his corner, and I would go to mine, and hang with our families, do whatever we had to do, and ramp back up and go out again. It was just an endless cycle of touring, recording, and writing. Now, the pressure isn’t there like that. We’re not doing it for survival,” he said, noting the difference.

It was our first time catching up with the singer since Merle Haggard – long one of Dunn’s heroes – passed away in April. He said he was fortunate enough to see him one last time close to the end of Haggard’s life. “I had just been down at Starstruck where he was recording with his band. He knew then he was on the way out, and he was trying to get as much stuff on tape with his guys as he could. He’s always been the best singer-songwriter in Country Music ever. Go back and listen to his voice, and he was like Sinatra back in his day. There was just a fullness to his voice that was magic.”

Ronnie Dunn’s “Damn Drunk,” featuring Kix Brooks, is available for purchase HERE.