
Country newcomer Ty Bates says that on the road with his band and crew, some very interesting conversations come up.
“We are on the road a lot, so we talk about a lot of different topics. I think Saved by the Bell came up last week, along with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” the Georgia native said. “That takes me back,” he reminisced fondly of Bell. “I must have watched that show every day of my life growing up. I watched The College Years and all of it. I loved that show.”
So with that said, Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani Amber Thiessen) or Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley)? “Kelly, hands down,” he said with a laugh, though he admits, “Jessie got hotter after the show, with Showgirls and those movies, but Kelly probably looks the same today as she did then.”
With that important decision settled, Bates turned the topic of the conversation to his brand-new self-titled EP, which he’s very excited about. “We worked with Rogers Masson, who is more on the rock side. But the music didn’t turn out that way — which is exactly what we wanted. We’re not really the ‘bro country’ sound. We like to keep it a little more classic-sounding. We like to tell stories with our music, and we’re really happy with how it turned out. I guess good things are worth waiting for.”
Bates tells Billboard that audiences have been very receptive to his music so far. “We’ve been getting some great response. We’re up in Minnesota right now, and it’s amazing to come here and have people know the songs. They’ve downloaded them but want to buy the CD too. I ask them, ‘Don’t you already have them?’ and they say they want the CD too. It’s been cool to see them liking the songs and reacting the way they have on social media. It’s been a lot of hard work, but it feels like it is paying off.”
In what is sort of an unorthodox move, Bates isn’t working a particular track to radio — at least not yet. “Right now, we are picking between a couple of tracks, gauging the fans’ comments. I feel like we’ve got a couple of songs that are different that people are going to like. I originally wrote them to pitch to other people, and they made it onto the CD. It’s been great watching people’s response to them.”
Influence-wise, Bates says the music coming out of country radio in the late 1980s and early ’90s is what originally captivated him about the music business. “Randy Travis was the first cassette tape I ever had, and we listened to that over and over until it wore out. There was also a lot of Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks. Brooks & Dunn was one of my favorite duos or groups ever.”
Just like many artists, Bates says his first performance experience was in church, but he later developed his vocal chops working at Six Flags amusement park. “As far as really hitting the ground and getting my performance level up — as well as working with other performers onstage — it helped out a lot. I did the Six Flags show and also worked at a show in Myrtle Beach called Hot Steppin’ Country, which was two hours straight of singing, and — as embarrassing as it is to admit — dancing,” he said with a laugh. “I would say it’s like a college degree in performance. Doing Six Flags was five days a week, and High Steppin’ Country was three or four days a week. That was a two-hour show and takes you so much farther being onstage every night of the week, and developing your interaction with the audience was so vital. I attribute a lot of my stage presence to those shows.”
With the EP picking up steam, and a radio single forthcoming, Bates feels the future is looking very bright. “We’re staying very busy now, playing music and traveling and just trying to make a decent living at it. Obviously, we are trying to make the next level, but 2014 has been great. We’ve got a lot of people on our team now that are buying into what we do and really believe in us. We’re just trying to move forward and see that one step goes to the next one. If we keep believing, and keep working, we’ll get there.”