Scotty McCreery is opening up about being a father. McCreery has two-year-old Avery with his wife, Gabi. The couple is also expecting their second child this fall. The American Idol winner has crossed a lot of items off of his bucket list, including having hit singles, selling out tours, becoming a Grand Ole Opry member and more.
But for McCreery, nothing will ever top him becoming a father.
“It’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me for sure,” McCreery tells Us Weekly. “[Avery’s] already two and a half and running around and he’s talking a mile a minute. It’s just so fun watching him grow. Having two is gonna be insane. … The coolest, best thing I’ve ever done is being a dad.”
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McCreery has another hit at radio, with “Bottle Rockets,” his collaboration with Hootie & the Blowfish.
“If you’re a Hootie & the Blowfish fan, I think you might love this song,” McCreery hints. “I grew up loving Hootie & the Blowfish, and we wrote this song with him in mind. It’s called ‘Bottle Rockets,’ but if you listen through it, you might hear a familiar voice and Darius Rucker and the rest of the band getting in there to join us. This was a lot of fun, something different for them, but we’ve never really done a song like this. It turned out pretty cool.”
“Bottle Rockets” was written on a writer’s retreat, stemming from a conversation McCreery was having with the other writers.
“We had a lot of songs started going into that retreat, but this song came out of a conversation,” McCreery recalls onToday’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen.. “This was us reminiscing on previous summers, like ‘I remember my last summer of no job, no responsibilities and school was out. That was such a fun summer.’ And for me in the Carolinas, and I think for everybody worldwide, Hootie & the Blowfish were huge. It was just talking about those soundtracks of summer. I forget who played into it first, but the chords were kind of matching, and we were like, ‘Man, that’s kind of cool,’ so we just ran with it.”
Hootie & the Blowfish appear in the song thanks in large part to McCreery’s close friendship with the band’s lead singer, Darius Rucker.
“We’re in the same fantasy league together,” McCreery explains. “I love the guy. But, I was kind of nervous to ask him to do it, because I was like, ‘This has gotta be one of their babies. I don’t know if they’ll even want to touch this.’ But they loved it, and they were so gracious and supportive of it. So having them on, just game-changer.”
“Our love of sports is kind of what brought us together, like NC State,” he continues. “A lot of people in the Hootie & the Blowfish camp went to NC State, and that’s where I went to school, so we’ve got a little friendly rivalry there. We’ve been to football games together, and we got to do C2C overseas together, and I think that’s when we really became super close.”
Seasons Change: Platinum Edition will be out on June 20. Find “Bottle Rockets” and all of McCreery’s music and upcoming shows at ScottyMcCreery.com.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the CMA / John Russell