Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty ImagesThe first time lots of folks thought of Brad Paisley and the Rolling Stones in the same breath was when the Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famers invited the West Virginia native to open for them two years ago as their Zip Code Tour passed through Nashville.
Much to Brad’s surprise, Mick Jagger had been keeping up with him from the very beginning.
“It’s a really fascinating and flattering thing,” Brad tells ABC Radio. “When we started opening shows for them, it came from him. He had sent his assistant in 1999 to the record stores in London to get Who Needs Pictures,” he says of his debut album.
“He said, ‘You may not know it, but when your first album came out, I wanted to hear what you were doing lyrically, and I had heard a few of the songs and the guitar playing and thought, I need to hear this guy.’ And he had kinda kept up with me!”
Brad recalls he had no idea Jagger was a fan until a friend overheard him talking about the country singer one year at the Grammys.
“The next thing you know…they had people sitting in with them that first tour back, I went and did that,” Brad says, remembering playing with the Stones in Philadelphia.
From there, the “Today” hitmaker and the “Satisfaction” singer became friends.
“We got to know each other and then they had us open in Nashville and we got to know each other some more,” he reveals. “We went to dinner a few times, and I finally just said, ‘You need to come back here when we are off!’”
That led to the pair’s collaboration on “Drive of Shame,” which is on Brad’s forthcoming album, Love and War, due April 21.
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