Scotty McCreery and Hootie & the Blowfish want to play at the upcoming CMA Awards. The two acts have a Top 10 hit with “Bottle Rockets,” a song that features the band’s iconic “Hold My Hand” single.
“If the opportunity presents itself,” McCreery tells Audacy, when asked if they plan on performing the song live.
“You hope….This is the song of the summer,” lead singer Darius Rucker adds. “It’s a big song. I really hope we get to play together sometime.”
For McCreery, nothing would ever likely top being able to sing that song with Hootie & the Blowfish, in Nashville on a televised awards show.
“All of Bridgestone Arena singing ‘Hold My Hand’ together? It would be magic,” McCreery adds.
Part of the reason McCreery and Hootie & the Blowfish want to perform “Bottle Rockets” together is because they recorded the song separately, so to be able to share the stage to sing the song would be a deram come true, for all of them.
The Story Behind “Bottle Rockets”
McCreery wrote “Bottle Rockets” with Brent Anderson, Derek George, Jeremy Bussey, Monty Criswell, Frank Rogers and Bobby Hamrick, on a writing retreat in the mountains of North Carolina.
“We had a lot of songs started going into that retreat, but this song came out of a conversation,” McCreery shares 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 and Rucker were already good friends when McCreery asked him to join him on the song.
“We’re in the same fantasy league together,” McCreery says. “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.”
Scotty McCreery’s ‘Scooter & Friends’ EP
“Bottle Rockets” is on McCreery’s new Scooter & Friends EP, out now. The five-song project also includes “Once Upon a Bottle of Wine” with Charlie Wilson, “Whiskey Said” featuring Lee Brice, plus “Swim Up Bar” and “Holding Down the Honky Tonk.”
“I had a lot of fun creating this EP and performing some songs that are different from my normal sound, yet are still me,” McCreery says of the proejct. “Getting to record with Hootie & the Blowfish, Lee Brice, and my hero Charlie Wilson on songs that I co-wrote with some of my favorite songwriters has been a blast.”
. Find “Bottle Rockets” and all of McCreery’s music and upcoming shows at ScottyMcCreery.com.