Jon Pardi Detoured From Country Music In His Teens
Not all country artists follow a straight line from listening to country music as kids, to playing it as adults.
Jon Pardi grew up listening to country, but he took a detour in high school and got into the pop-punk music scene.
He was especially influenced by West Coast bands.
“At the time I rebelled from country, because I grew up everything country, and Blink-182, and Green Day and all that stuff was huge, so I got really into that high-energy, super-catchy stuff.”
Turns out the “rock thing” never really took.
“I kinda burned out after high school . . . because when I started writing country again, I had songs I wrote that always sounded country through the whole wannabe pop-punk stuff.”
But that diversion did influence his next phase.
“It forced me to really dig into high-energy catchy riffs and always trying to be fast, loud, and [I] that back to country, not knowing that it was a West Coast thing.”
