Lee Brice: Hard Not To Love

Old-School Sexy

The other day, The Inky Jukebox was asked who the sexiest man in country music is. As you can imagine, such a serious question required a great deal of thought. Justin Moore? Absolutely. But how about someone … taller? More beardy? Somewhat burlier? The Inky Jukebox’s mental rolodex was flipping pretty hard before the obvious answer came on the radio.

Lee Brice.

Huh? Oh yes, my friends. He’s your standard slab of 6’ 3” beefcake who wears jeans, an open shirt and Aviators. He’s also that guy whose second album, Hard 2 Love, has been on a regular rotation in The Inky Jukebox’s car. It’s a record with no bad track. 

In fact, several of them are solid keepers, including the excellent “I Drive Your Truck,” “Hard To Love,” and “See About A Girl.”

Brice knows how to write a song though, and has a proven track record of hits for others.

Mr. Brice getting sweaty in Pittsburgh recently

He puts on a good live show, full of energy with a party atmosphere. The Inky Jukebox enjoyed seeing him opening for Brad Paisley recently.

But we have a bone to pick with Mr. Brice, truth be told. Dude: you’re a serious songwriter whose career has taken off. Why, in God’s name, are you using the numeral “2” in the title of your album? The word is “to.” Using numerals instead of words is not only twenty years out of cool, but makes you look like you’re writing for tween girls. Tween girls are not your fanbase: 30 and 40-something grown-ass women are. Tween girls find nothing sexy about beardy, burly guys like yourself.

And that’s how it should be.

Angels At Red Rocks

Shake It, Sugaree

The Inky Jukebox would like to file this one under “talents she’d most like to have.” Which talents, you say? ALL OF THEM.

Behold: Susan Tadeschi and Grace Potter, a match made in heaven. 

Bros Before Hos, Y'all

If you took Tyler Farr’s songs as representations of his real life, then boy, Dude sucks at keeping a woman. Fortunately, he has a gang of burly, beardy bros to help him get over those wounds. In his video for “Redneck Crazy,” he demonstrates, through a careful visual narrative, what a girl can expect to have happen to her if she tragically decides to swap a country boy for a hipster loser. As Farr puts it, “he can’t amount to much / by the look of that little truck.” I wonder what he means by that?

First of all, this girl doesn’t know a good thing when she sees it because Tyler Farr is a man who rhymes “Hank” with “drink.” He also has a really cool clubhouse for the boys complete with a table, a lamp, and the taxidermied heads of a number of antlered animals he’s presumably killed. The best part about his hangout is that his buddies are all there — and his buddies consist of Willie from Duck Dynasty, sexy Lee Brice, and Colt Ford. Note that Farr's crew all have exemplary facial hair, while the hipster is clean-shaven. They’re all wearing camo and plot to sneak up on the cheating hussy to exact Tyler Farr’s revenge on her. The hipster “won’t be getting any / sleep tonight.” Emphasis on “any.”

They confusingly do this by gearing up in their camo waders and tramp through a swamp. Then they switch to much more sensible ATVs and golf carts. Sure ‘nuff, she’s getting all tucked in to her cozy camo-bed with the hipster loser when they pull up, rig up some wires, send Colt Ford out to ring her buzzer, then turn on all their headlights. This mildly annoys her. The men also TP her house in epic fashion. Because nothing says “you bitch” quite like toilet paper.

The thing that is most inexplicable about this entire scenario isn’t that these rednecks respond in a predictable fashion when one of them gets cheated on. It’s that the lady in question wasn’t with Lee Brice in the first place. Girlfriend, WTF?

Redneck Paradise, 4th July

In order to celebrate our country's birthday, let's consider the things which make it a redneck paradise.

First up, there's Kid Rock and Hank Jr. to tell us how it do.

Not enough water sports? Let Craig Morgan explain where y'all should go to cool off. 

What to do when the sun goes down? Why, crack open some ice cold beers with Blake Shelton and the Pistol Annies.

Hungry? Two words: fried chicken. Let Zac Brown cook some up.

Happy Independence Day y'all!