Broken BowThe title of Jason Aldean‘s ninth album, 9, is more than just a number. It’s part of a plan the ACM Entertainer of the Decade’s had for a long time.
“It was just something that I told myself early on in my career,” he explains. “It’s like, ‘It’d be cool if I ever made nine albums, just to call the album #9,’ ’cause that was my baseball number when I was growing up. And anybody that knows me knows I’m a huge baseball fan, played for a long time.”
“I remember when I was in high school,” Jason continues, “I used to sign everything [with] my name and the #9 under it… It was just kind of always my lucky number, and I just thought it would be cool to have an album called that.”
Jason’s top-fifteen hit, “We Back” — co-written by Florida Georgia Line‘s Tyler Hubbard — proved to be the perfect lead single, but he didn’t feel like there was another cut that lent itself to being the title track.
“I looked at songs on the album,” he recalls. “It wasn’t like we had a song title that really stood out that I thought was gonna change the game or anything.”
So it was back to the original vision Jason had in 2005 when he was putting out his self-titled, debut record.
“At the time, you know, album one, thinking about album nine, it seemed like an eternity away,” he reminisces. “And then you fast forward… you blink and turn around, and here we are making the ninth record. It’s pretty simple, but kinda cool to me.”
You can stream or download 9 now, ahead of Jason’s Monday performance on Good Morning America. Tune in to watch starting at 7 a.m. on ABC.
Copyright © 2019, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
