For the last 14 years, the Lone Star State’s Casey Donahew has been burning up the Texas asphalt—and beyond—with the goal of delivering his sizzling brand of country music to anyone who will listen. Along the way, he’s dropped six albums, including two Billboard Top 10s, and made a name for himself as a cowboy who’s equally adept at entertaining a packed house at Billy Bob’s as he is his friends around a campfire.
On Friday, Aug. 19, Casey will drop his seventh album, All Night Party, a 10-song offering that represents his most complete record to date. Songs like “Josie Escalido” and “What Cowboys Do” remain true to his cowboy roots, while “Kiss Me” and “Feels This Right” are commercially viable for country radio.
One of the reasons the album feels all-embracing is celebrated producer Josh Leo, who worked with Casey for the first time. And FYI, Josh is kind of a badass in Music City, not only as a producer but also as a writer.
In honor of his seventh album, Nash Country Daily sat down with Casey over a beer at famed Nashville hole-in-the-wall Santa’s Pub to ask him seven questions about All Night Party, cowboy music, his Texas roots and more.
NCD: Is All Night Party really an all-night party, because some nights I just want to get some sleep?
“It’s a pretty good party [laughing]. It’s a good mix of who I am as an artist. I wrote eight of the 10 songs. There’s songs like ‘Feels This Right,’ which spawned the title to the album, and it’s a real party. There are two songs I didn’t write. Tim Nichols wrote ‘That Got the Girl,’ which is kind of a beach-sounding song. And ‘College Years’ is a fun, party song written by Chris Cavanaugh and Kip Moore about too much fun in college. The single is ‘Kiss Me,’ a song I wrote with one of my guitar players, John Newsome, on the bus. John came up with a guitar melody that turned into the banjo melody on the record. He started working on it and we hammered out the verses and the idea of the awkward friendship that’s waiting to take the next step. But yeah, the album is a pretty good party as a whole.”
The song “Josie Escalido” plays out like an old Marty Robbins tune. That’s got to be one of your favorites on the new album?
“‘Josie Escalido’ is my favorite song. It’s a Casey Donahew original. I like to fancy myself a storyteller, and that song has kind of a Marty Robbins, Robert Earl Keen, ‘Seven Spanish Angels’ feel about the Old West. I love the idea of seeing that song play out in my head like a movie. Josh Leo was really instrumental in bringing that song to life. He knew about arranging the horns and getting that mariachi feel, that sound. He really helped that one come to life. I think it’s my favorite because I love the story so much.”
Speaking of your producer, Josh Leo, his name draws a lot of water in Nashville. He’s produced albums and songs for a who’s who, including Reba McEntire, Alabama and Kenny Chesney. What was it like working with him for the first time.
“He was all excited. He had a plan. He was really on board with us not changing our sound, which is important. I wanted to make a commercial record that we could definitely get out and work, but I didn’t want to lose what we do or who we are in the process. Josh Leo is sharp. He can play guitar. He can produce. He can write songs. So he has a pretty circular grasp of the whole thing. He gets it from all directions. He’s really open. We didn’t butt heads on anything. If there was something he thought, he’d say it, and vice versa. It was a pleasure working with him.”
Your last two albums—2011’s Double-Wide Dream and 2013’s StandOff—were No. 10 and No. 7, respectively, on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Do you feel any pressure topping those numbers with All Night Party?
“You always want to do better than the last one. And there’s been a lot of different kinds of artists having a lot of success lately, guys like my friend Cody Johnson. The record business is all over the place now with the actual business part of music, sales, streaming and downloads. I’m hoping for the best. A lot of energy, a lot of positive vibes. That’s what we’re shooting for. We’re hoping to take it to a bigger audience. The only way we know to do that is national radio. I think there’s a lot of possibility. A lot of opportunity that may not have been there maybe four or five years ago when we were putting out records. There wasn’t the same mindset. I think now, there’s a window open to sneak in for guys like me.”
Is it a tough balance trying to stay true to your Texas roots but also making something commercially viable that people outside of the country of Texas will get behind?
“I think we’ve always had a commercial vibe to what we do. We’re from Texas, rooted in Texas, but we’ve been touring nationally for the last eight years. We wanted to do something with this record—we wanted to take the next step to try to conquer that commercial radio universe. You know, it’s hard to break through as an independent artist to start with. It’s an uphill battle from jumpstreet. We’re just getting our feet into this thing to figure it out, but I can only do what I can only do. And there’s things I’m just not going to do, so I wanted to have songs a bunch of people believed in and we could take it to radio and be confident that it could hold its own within the format. I’m for everyone making the music they want to make. I want to make my music. I want to take it to a bigger audience.”
You used to compete on the rodeo circuit and you’re always good about including a “cowboy” song on your albums. All Night Party features “What Cowboys Do.” Why is that cowboy element important to you?
“I love cowboy music. We’ve done a cowboy song on every record we have. I still actually team rope and keep horses, my bass player team ropes and raises bucking horses. I just love the whole rodeo environment. It’s a big part of our fan base. It’s one of our strongholds—that rodeo community. I’m always trying to look for ways to tell that story, too. People that don’t rodeo don’t get it. There’s no guaranteed contracts in rodeo. They travel up and down the road on their own dollar. It’s kind of similar to what we do as musicians. It’s a hard life. Up and down the highway. It’s one of those songs I love. The arrangement is really fantastic. I’d love for that to be a single, but they tell me cowboy music is a tough sell in the radio universe these days.”
You’ve been at this music thing for a long time now. What are you most proud of?
We started in 2002. All Night Party is the seventh album—the sixth studio, there’s a live one. There have been ups and downs, for sure, especially in the beginning. Getting established and getting your feet moving in the right direction, it’s an uphill battle. There’s five tough years to get going. You talk to other people and that’s pretty common, that’s a standard number. If you can make it five years and hang in there, it can really turn. It’s been really fulfilling doing it ourselves. My wife is our manager. She’s always been our manager. We do a lot on our own. She runs the office, the merchandise. We’ve accomplished a lot of things. I’ve always said, ‘If this comes to an end, we’ll be able to look back and say what we did was kinda cool.’ We sold out Billy Bob’s, we played Red Rocks—not bad for a couple of kids from Johnson County.”
All Night Party Track Listing
- “Kiss Me”
- “Country Song”
- “College Years”
- “What Cowboys Do”
- “Feels This Right”
- “That’s Why We Ride”
- “That Got the Girl”
- “Josie Escalido”
- “White Trash Bay”
- “Going Down Tonight”
photo by Amy Richmond
