Baylee Littrell Forges his Own Path in Country Music
It’s not unusual for sons to follow their fathers into the family business, but when that business is entertainment, it creates its own unique challenges. None of that is a deterrent to Baylee Littrell, the very talented and determined 19-year-old son of Backstreet Boy Brian Littrell and his wife Leighanne. On February 22, Baylee will release “Gone,” the first single from his upcoming sophomore album.
“‘Gone’ was the song I felt like everybody needed to hear first,” Littrell tells SLN during a Zoom call from his home in Georgia. “I’m super excited for it. I’ve written every song so far on this record. It looks like it might be a 100% Baylee record. It’s all me so far. I just started writing and I got inspired. I really wanted this next record to be 100% authentic.”
Even though he’s been extremely prolific lately, Littrell says he’s still listening to outside material. “I’m always open if somebody writes a better song,” he says. “We’ve had some great songs pitched for this record that we’re still thinking about. My great friend Daniel Ross has produced every single song on this record for me and he’s a fantastic writer, so I’m pretty sure Daniel is in it one way or another.”
Littrell says the inspiration for “Gone” came during a trip to the beach. “I was on vacation and I kept waking up every morning at 8:00 o’clock on the dot when I was at the beach. You know when you are on vacation, you want to sleep in,” he says, “and I could never go back to bed. So I woke up at 8 o’clock on that final morning and I’m like, ‘Alright that’s it.’ I grabbed my guitar. I’m sitting there strumming and I thought, ‘Alright I’ve got this idea,’ and that’s when it started to come about. I’m sitting there on the bed and there’s wrinkled sheets everywhere and I said, ‘Wrinkled sheets at 2 am,’ and that’s how it just started.”
It started with a catchy opening line and the rest of the song just tumbled out. “A couple nights later we were getting ready to go out to dinner and my dad was downstairs,” he says. “We were waiting on the girls to be ready and I said, ‘Hey can I play you something real quick?’ and he’s like, ‘Sure.’ I said, ‘I just want you to hear it and tell me if you like it.’ My dad started crying and I was like, ‘Are you crying because it’s so awful or because you love it?’ And he’s like, ‘I love it! You’ve got to put this on the second record.’”
Littrell is excited about introducing the sophomore album with “Gone.” “I feel so blessed that that song gets to be on the record,” Baylee says, “and that it ended up meaning as much as it does to everybody in my inner circle and hopefully to everybody who listens to it.”
What did he learned from working on his debut album, 770-Country, that he’s putting to use on the new record? “Knowing that it’s not wrong to go outside of the box,” he replies. “I had this idea in my head of how I was supposed to write, how it was supposed to sound, because that’s what you hear a lot [is that] ‘You need to write like this to make it here or you need to do this to get there,’ and I thought I need to forget all that and just write what is in my heart. . . I want to take everyone on a journey and tell them a story. That’s what I love about Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson and writers like that is just how they can take everyone on a certain path, and you can picture it. It’s like reading a book and I want people to be able to do that.”
Littrell’s artistic ambitions began early. “When I was about eight years old, dad was on tour and every time we’d come back to play Georgia we’d have family, the entire crew from tour, all the guys, all the bandmates back to the house and have a dinner,” he recalls. “My cousin Reese and I literally performed this little show together. We had a band in elementary school. That’s how it started and I realized I want to do this and as I got older I started opening up for the guys on tour. I would sing two songs for the opener. I got to see the world and it was so surreal. That was my preview into it and now being 19 years old and it’s already been four years since I started country music and explored this journey. Time seriously flies by. I don’t honestly know what else I would do. At this point, I’m set on this.”
Though Littrell has had success as an actor, receiving a Drama Desk Award nomination for his role in the Broadway musical Disaster, country music is his first love. “I grew up in Marietta, GA and I chose my grandparents over going to my friend’s house as a kid,” he smiles. “I would spend about every weekend with my grandparents. Now we’ve built them a house basically in our backyard, so we don’t have to travel far at all, but I grew up listening to Willie and Merle, Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline and that’s what started it all. Every time I would hear country music, I felt at home. That’s what I was raised on.”
In honing his performance skills, Littrell has picked up tips while opening for such artists as Chris Lane, and of course, the Backstreet Boys. “I watch how they work the crowd,” he says. “I’d watch Chris and the Boys almost every night and just try to study and learn how I could be better. I’d watch how my Dad works a crowd and interacts with the fans, just how comfortable he is on stage. That’s a work in progress that takes years, but I modeled a lot of myself after my dad. He’s lighthearted and I think that’s No.1, just not taking yourself too seriously because at the end of the day you’re not any more important than anyone else and so if you go up there thinking that, you might as well just get off the stage. It’s just about realizing that you are there to do your job. You are there for the fans.
“Chris is the same way,” Littrell continues. “He gets up there and he makes the crowd feel like they are up there with him. That’s something I want to create myself. I want people to feel like they are sitting up there on that stage with me. I feel a lot more comfortable now as time goes on especially with my original stuff and it’s okay to be vulnerable. That’s another thing that people forget. You have to be vulnerable, and you have to mess up to get better, so humiliation is key. It comes with time, but you need it to earn your stripes.”
Littrell admits both his parents were concerned about him going into show business. “My parents have never put any pressure on me to forge this path,” he says. “They actually kind of wanted me to not do it because they didn’t want me to have a bad experience or to regret it and so far it’s been a heck of a ride for the three of us in this journey, but every bit of it has been worth it.”
Being the son of a successful entertainer can be both a blessing and a curse and Littrell has learned to take the good with the bad. “The blessing of it is having your foot in the door. Sometimes you can get that meeting or you can get in there with some label and have a conversation. They’ll take you because of your name, but they have no intention of signing you,” he says candidly. “I’ve had a lot of people quickly assume what they wanted to about me and think that I was a jerk or that I didn’t know what I was doing or thought I didn’t deserve it. I’ve heard that before. It’s rough and it’s hard to hear, but then there’s also people that will listen. I love when people give me a chance because I feel I’m actually heard.”
One contingent that has always been in his corner are the fans. “They’ve helped build my career,” he says. “They fly in from everywhere. I have people, when I play a bar in Atlanta, they come in from South America, Canada, from Buffalo, NY from California, everywhere just to see one show and that is true devotion. That’s such a blessing. That wins it all right there.”
Baylee is playing Tuesday, March 22 at Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop at 7pm.
