Old Dominion Expand ‘Happy Endings’ Tour After 2017 No. 1 Album: ‘It’s Cool That We’re Getting to Do This’
Old Dominion is expanding its Happy Endings World Tour, adding 13 dates to an already packed touring schedule that has the band on the road for most of 2018.
Old Dominion is expanding its Happy Endings World Tour, adding 13 dates to an already packed touring schedule that has the band on the road for most of 2018.
The additional shows come after the Nashville outfit won Vocal Group of the Year at the Academy of Country Music awards in Las Vegas, and follows the continued success of their 2017 album Happy Endings which hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart and includes hits like “Break Up With Him” and “No Such Thing As A Broken Heart.”
Led by lead singer and guitarist Matthew Ramsey, Old Dominion features Trevor Rosen on guitar and keyboards, Whit Sellers on drums, Geoff Sprung on bass and guitar player Brad Tursi. Launched in 2014 with the release of their EP Meat and Candy produced by famed Nashville song-writer and producer Shane McNally, the band has toured non-stop since its release, headlining their own theater and arena dates and opening for acts like Alabama, Jake Owen and Chase Rice. Besides their 2018 tour, Old Dominion is also joining Thomas Rhett to open Kenny Chesney’s massive Trip Around the Sun tour, hitting NFL stadiums across North America.
“We’re on track to play about 200 shows a year,” Ramsey tells Billboard. “The story of this band is based around two things — songwriting and touring. We really didn’t know how to do anything else other than write songs and play them, so we just kept doing that as much as we can.”
Old Dominion is partnering with AEG for the Happy Endings tour, and the concert promoter has supported the band for a number of years including an appearance at the 2016 Stagecoach festival and showcasing Old Dominion as one of Goldenvoice’s first Stagecoach Spotlight tours.
“AEG bought on really early with us, before we really had anything going on. So it’s very cool that we are getting to do this now with them,” Ramsey explains.
Because the band is touring so much, most of their songwriting takes place on the road. “We write and record a lot on the bus. The overdubs and background vocals we did on our album were mostly recorded in dressing rooms and in hotel rooms — we do a lot of work on the road.” Ramsey says the band’s creative process is part deliberate, part spontaneity. Songs like “Written in the Sand” were intentional endeavors to build a narrative around a romantic concept — in this case, a couple determining their relationship status — while others just come together in the studio.
“For ‘Written in the Sand,’ I brought that to the guys with the idea being a song about how most people have to define their relationship at some point, and we built the song around that premise,” Ramsey explains. “But for something like, ‘No Such Thing as a Broken Heart,’ we really had no idea what we were doing that day, just writing and jamming on the back of the bus when I blurted out the first line of the song ‘I wonder if Jack and Diane ever made it,'” he adds, referring to the hit John Mellencamp song, which he said was “built line by line” including the song’s hook and chorus.
The Happy Endings tour will be the band’s biggest headline tour yet, Ramsey says, noting, “When we looked at the routing, we said ‘Wow, we’re not a bar band any more. This is big boy stuff.’”
Additional dates for the Happy Endings World Tour are below. Buy tickets and learn more at OldDominionBand.com.
Oct 4 Knoxville, TN Knoxville Civic Coliseum #
Oct 6 Rochester, NY Main Street Armory #
Oct 11 Amarillo, TX Amarillo Civic Center #
Oct 12 Las Cruces, NM Pan American Center #
Oct 26 State College, PA Bryce Jordan Center ^
Oct 27 Roanoke, VA Berglund Center ^
Nov 29 Estero (Ft. Meyers), FL Germain Arena #
Nov 30 St. Augustine, FL St Augustine Amphitheatre +
Dec 7 Huntington, WV Big Sandy Superstore Arena #
Dec 8 Grand Rapids, MI Deltaplex Arena #
Dec 13 Bismarck, ND Bismarck Event Center *
Dec 14 Fargo, ND Scheels Arena +
Dec 15 Duluth, MN Amsoil Arena*
* w/ High Valley
# w/ Michael Ray & High Valley
^ w/ Granger Smith & High Valley
+ Support To Be Announced
More From Pro
