Congratulations to Scotty McCreery! The father of two is celebrating “Bottle Rockets,” his collaboration with Hootie & the Blowfish, becoming a Gold single, for sales in excess of 500,000 units. The song became McCreery’s seventh No. 1 single of his career.
McCreery found otu the good news while performing at the Grand Ole Opry.
“It was such a thrill to record a song with Hootie & The Blowfish, and to see how it connected with the fans in concert, on the radio, and via streaming,” McCreery says of the honor. “Thank you to everyone who supported the song. It’s because of you that this song has gone Gold.”
Scotty McCreery Celebrates His Seventh No. 1 Single
“Bottle Rockets” is on McCreery’s latest Scooter & Friends EP, out now. McCreery, whose celebrated his first No. 1 single with “Five More Minutes” in 2017, was understandably thrilled with the success of “Bottle Rockets.”
“We officially have the No. 1 song in the US of A,” McCreery said when the song hit the top of the charts. “‘Bottle Rockets’ is No. 1. Me and Hootie & the Blowfish, this is unreal y’all. It’s unreal. It never gets old. I think this No. 1 is extra special, just being that it’s with the group that I grew up listening to. [They’ve] been heroes of mine for a long time, and now it’s just super cool to be able to call them friends. I just want to thank all of y’all for listening to the song, letting it be a part of your summer. Country radio, thank y’all for playing it for everybody, and taking this thing all the way to the top, No. 1.”
The Story Behind Scotty McCreery’s “Bottle Rockets” With Hootie & the Blowfish
McCreery began what became “Bottle Rockets” while on a writing retreat. Together, he and Frank Rogers, Brent Anderson, Derek George, Jeremy Bussey, and Bobby Hamrick wrote “Bottle Rockets,” including the “Hold My Hand” writers on the song as well, once Hootie & the Blowfish agreed to join him.
“We had a lot of songs started going into that retreat, but this song came out of a conversation,” McCreery recalls on Today’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.”
McCreery grew up a big fan of Hootie & the Blowfish. To be able to have them join him on a song is more than he could have once even dreamed for himself.
“It fit like a glove when we wrote it,” McCreery boasts on Marty & McGee. “When we wrote it, I did the demo by myself, and it worked. But the dream was, can we get Hootie & the Blowfish to do this? Me and [Darius], we’ve become good friends over the years, and we’re golf buddies now. We’re in the same fantasy football league. We’re boys, but when you text somebody that, it’s not just being boys, now we’re talking business. So I was a little nervous.
“But he texted right back that he loved the song, and wanted to do it,” he remembers. “He said, ‘Let me get the other guys involved.’ And we didn’t sample it either. They all went back in the studio, rerecorded their parts. I was just cheesing when I got the mix back.”
Photo Credit: CMA / Hunter Berry