Helen: I’m very excited about this newest album. The title track, “Who Saved Who,” tells the story of Jack, your rescue dog and that’s a beautiful story.
Wade: Thank you. Every word of it is true.
Helen: This is a well put together album. Talk to me about your connection with Roger Springer. Four of the tracks are co-writes with him. (Ex Factor, Beautiful Mess, Honky Tonk in Texas, Better with my Baby)
Wade: Roger and I have known each other since I was about 12 or 13 years old. We used to play this little Opry show together in Oklahoma. When we ran into each other we figured out that we had known each other before. Anyway, he’s one if the most naturally gifted singer songwriters that I have ever met. He’s a lot better than what he’s ever been given credit for. That guy is also a great country music singer. He had a band called Springer. They had a record deal on MCA years ago. He never really got the chance to excel like he could. He’s just an amazing talent
Helen: Roger lives in Oklahoma. Where do you write?
Wade: We usually go up to his house in Hendersonville. He has a room specifically for that. He brings young artists that he’s working with and we try and write with them. One in particular, a guy named Jake Worthington, which we wrote “Better With My Baby” with. It helps when we hear the guy’s voice and you try to tailor make something for them. Jake, whom I expect we’ll hear something from him in the future, is a very good voice. I would love to do some more with him at some time. That’s a song that Roger had the title for, we listened to this kid’s voice and I just started a chord progression and he and I were off to the races. That’s all it takes. I usually start picking something and Roger will sing something and the next thing you know we have a song written. Its weird.
Helen: Several of the cuts are heart-lifting. We can tell there’s joy in your life.
Wade: Things are better. I actually tried to take Dr. Berlin’s advice when he told me to “Go live your life.” He told me I needed to be doing this stuff. I never thought in a million years I’d get married again, but lo and behold, it happened. And I’m glad about it! She’s a good lady and we get along pretty good. She’s very funny and very smart.
Helen: Sounds like the song on the album, “She Made it Look Easy.”
Wade: Ward Davis is another fellow I like to write with. I had the title and I had part of the song written and I played it for him, and he kind of moved the melody around a little bit and we went in a totally different direction and that song came out pretty quick. Ward is a very good singer as well.
Helen: “Ask That Girl to Dance” is like another anthem to go live your life. You don’t have a co-writer on that one.
Wade: I’m constantly reminded and then I forget and am reminded again from something else, this life is flying by and I hate it that all of this new found knowledge is wasted on me being older and sore all the time. (chuckle) I wish when I was a young man that I know what I know now.
Helen: There’s a quote about that - “Youth is wasted on the young.”
Wade: That’s exactly right! I think about all the things I could have accomplished if I’d had a little self-confidence. I just never did and I came to realize that, as I’ve gotten older, that I wasn’t as big a train-wreck as I thought I was. As a kid you always feel so awkward and just out of place. I always did anyway. Just zero self-confidence. Then you get older and look back on those years and think, “Gosh, I wasn’t really as bad as I thought I was. The song is kind of about that, you know “Fortune favors the bold.” That’s a true statement and something I never realized until I was older. What’s the worse that somebody’s going to do- say no. Give it a shot and that goes for anything. It’s an analogy obviously for any situation.
Helen: Did that realization come after the cancer?
Wade: Yes, definitely. You’re going to wake up and be 50 years old one of these days. When I was 25 years old and had my first record album, I never thought in a million years that things would be like they are now. I hate to repeat my self, but this life is flying by. It seems like yesterday. Don’t be so afraid of everything and try and take a chance every now and then.
Helen: “Honky Tonk in Texas” has got to have you dancing!
Wade: I love swing music. In Texas it’s pretty well known we don’t care what anybody else is doing, we do our own thing. I kind of get it down there and play down there a lot. A lot of places are still into my kind of music. A lot of them are mentioned in that song. I’m sure there are a lot of places in the United States that are that way, but I not more than Texas. Asleep at the Wheel and Johnny Lee still plays down there a whole lot. I mention him and Ray in the song. That’s what the song is about. I love swing music, I love to pick it. I’d like to gravitate more toward that style of music. The older I get, the more I’m interested in it.
Helen: “Ex Factor” - tell us what that’s about.
Wade: That was an idea I had many years ago and tried to write it before. I still have the piece of paper from about 10-12 years ago where I started writing that in a hotel room. I always had that in the back of my mind. I was sitting around with Roger and I said, “Hey, man, what do you think of this?” I played him what I originally had on it. The next thing we have a song written. That one came out pretty quick.
Helen: We’re all excited that this album is coming out.
Wade: I am, too! It comes out December 13th.
