Speaking to PEOPLE magazine in a recent interview, country star Luke Bryan explained how approaching his career and doing things “the old-fashioned way” led to his monumental success. In his view, just working his tail off on trying to succeed was what worked and led to him doing well, whereas trying to do thing in a glittery way without putting in the work just wouldn’t have worked.
Speaking to PEOPLE during the interview, he began by saying that he realized at the start of the career that it was proving himself that mattered and that he realized that, to do so, he would need to just work, work, and work. And so he did so, with help he received from others along the way helping him make a success of it.
In his words, “For most of my career I went up there going, I got to prove myself. So it’s really liberating and gratifying to just go, I am what I am. I earned it the old-fashioned way: working my butt off. A lot of people have propped me up and helped me along the way, and I hope they can enjoy the ride too.”
He then added that what really helped him keep at it was making a habit of just loving the experience, loving the work of singing, no matter how many people showed up to hear him. He said, “When I had 100 people in the room, I had a blast, and tonight it’ll be the same thing. The day you quit loving it, it’s time to move on. Thankfully I’ve never had those feelings. It’s pretty hard for being in front of 20,000 people to get old.”
Speaking more on that, Bryan also said that he does now love it all, it’s not just something he pretends to love for the crowd. In his words, “It’s not an act. I’m not up there like, ‘Oh I got to ham it up or turn it on for these people.’ It’s just – I’m in the moment, I’m having fun and I’m feeding off their energy and the more they give me, the more I try to give back.“
He also said that starting in Nashville a bit later than some of the young guns who show up earlier mattered a lot, as it gave him that added bit of maturity that helped him better navigate things and turn his hard work into success.
“I look back and I’m proud about the whole climb to get here. I had plans to move to Nashville at 20 years old and my brother passed away and I think at 20 I would’ve processed it all a lot differently, with a lot less maturity. When I moved to Nashville when I was 25, I could read people better. I could navigate the shady crowd. It helped me a lot in those aspects,” he said.
But, he added, the immaturity attendant with being a young man is something pretty much every successful country singer still has under his belt. “I don’t think you’re ever going to enter into the music business without making some immature mistakes … Especially when you drink a lot of beers,” he said.
Featured image credit: By Joe Bielawa – Luke Bryan-DSC_3270-3.2.14, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=122360145
