From toddler pals to high school bandmates to tour openers for country acts such as Jake Owen and Lee Brice, Outshyne has organically grown into a solid country rock presence. We caught up with them as they were driving through the mountains en route to the next stop on their radio tour. Lead vocalist, Waylon Owings, filled us in on the band’s journey, camaraderie, and latest music.
Alright so take us back to the beginning. How did you guys meet each other, and what inspired you to form the band?
It actually started, we all used to separately play in bands together in high school. We all played in rock bands and stuff like that. Me and the bass player (Smiley) have known each other since we were four years old, we’ve been friends forever. We just played in different bands in high school and, whenever we got out of high school, I kinda pulled away from the style of music that they were playing, started doing my own thing and just playing acoustic. Finally one of the guys said “why don’t we start a band?” I was like “alright.” So we just started a country band really for fun more than anything. I just happened to start writing songs, and next thing you know people are singing along to the songs, so I was like “wow, I think we’ve got something going here.” I kept writing more songs, and we’ve just been steady at it ever since.
When you think about the band and your songs, your sound, and your personality, what makes you stand out amongst some of the bands on the radio?
I think our friendship actually. Just the fact that we know each other so well makes us unique. Not many other bands have the history that we do together. A lot of bands are just stuck together, or put together by the labels or something like that. So I think our own friendship makes us unique.
How does that friendship manifest itself into your music and performances?
We get along pretty good. Everybody’s assigned a job to do. One person makes a set list every night and decides what songs we’re going to play and it kind of stays that way–everybody has their own part. We get along pretty good–we don’t argue as much as people would think they do. most people say like brothers and sisters argue like crazy. For us, when it turns into an argument we al kind of just walk away and let it slowly fade away and then we come back to it.
But as far as choosing things, we all kinda make the decisions together, and it usually turns out pretty easy.
Outshyne definitely has a strong rock vibe going. Who would you cite as the band’s musical influences?
Oh man! Me and my bass player, we grew up listening to old school country, like Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and even southern rock, like Lynyrd Skynyrd. But, as time went on, that was more of our parent’s music, and we kind of dipped out and experimented with our own stuff. We do have a rock history background, I guess you’d say, because every other member of the band also has played rock music or something there at some point.
I definitely think you can feel that influence in “Moonlight Crush,” your current single on SiriusXM’s The Highway. What’s the backstory on finding that song?
We got lucky and had Jeffrey Steele, who is one of the biggest songwriters in Nashville, help co-produce our album. I had a writing appointment with him, and he said, “let me pitch you some songs, some stuff that I got pitched.” He said “you might find something you like in there.” All of the songs were songs that have already been pitched to artists like Jason Aldean and all of these other big artists. Let’s say that there’s a great song in there, but Jason Aldean’s already got a song close to that topic, so he won’t pick that song, so it stays in there. We got the list, and I went through the list, and that song just automatically stuck, and I was like “we need this song.” We talked about it, and the group decided it was a pretty strong song, and it ended up going to #1 on the Highway, and I’m glad we took that song, because if not somebody else would have taken it, and it would have gone #1.
Staying on the topic of singles, you just made the choice to simultaneously release two singles off of your upcoming album, which is pretty unprecedented, what lead to that decision and what do you hope to accomplish in releasing those two songs?
With that, we had the two, and they’d been finished for a long time. We’d already decided which one was going to be the next radio single. But John Marks at The Highway, we’ve actually become pretty good friends with him, and we let him hear both of them, and he was like “Oh I love both songs so much.” So he said “this is what we’re going to do: I’m going to release the first one, then I’m going to wait however many months, and I’m just going to release the next two.” And I was like “well, okay.” So we ended up releasing both of ‘em. We hadn’t had music out, and it’s been a little while, we’ve been working real hard at it.
As people are listening to all of these releases, what do you hope that they take away from your music?
I just want them to feel good, that’s why I don’t have too many sad songs on there. I want ‘em to be a good time. Something they can relate to, because i like to listen to stuff that I can relate to.
There’s been a lot of talk this year about “bro country” some people embrace the term, others find it offensive, what’s your take on that label and bro country’s place in the genre?
I mean yeah there’s a lot of talk about it, and I mean, I hear it. But to me good music is good music, and I mean, they say everything comes and goes and fades away. There is some of it that I do like, I’m not going to pound it at all. Like I said, good music is good music.
We saw on your Facebook that you were hanging out at CMT a few week ago. Are you planning something special with them?
We’ve got a video out and everything. We talked to them about maybe having our next video on there. They were like, “yeah that’s cool, we’ve gotta hear you live before we can even consider doing the video.” So we went in there and did an acoustic set for them and they loved it, so that’s in the works now, hopefully, our video down there.
You’ve been on tour with quite a few cool acts, including Eric Church, Lee Brice, and Jake Owen. If you could choose a dream tour-mate, who would it be?
I’d have to say Hank Williams Jr. He’s rowdy, or he was. I don’t know if he’s as rowdy as he used to be, but I’ve always liked his music and I’d like to tour with him.
Now moving on to some fun questions. Reality TV shows have been popular lately. If Outshyne participated on Survivor, what would each member contribute to the band’s ability to survive?
Wow! I would say Casey would be a good swimmer, so he could swim and get the food and stuff. Jason is pretty smart, he’s got the book smarts. Smiley, our drummer is pretty entertaining, I’d give him that. Josh, he’s pretty entertaining too. With Josh and Smiley we’d be entertained. I’m not sure what I would be good for, except keeping a check on everything.
If Outshyne starred in any movie, what movie would it be and why?
We actually talked about having our own reality show about band life. There’s a lot of people that know us, but they don’t know what we do completely and they think “ohh all you guys do is have fun. You don’t work…you don’t do this.” There’s so much more to it than people see…the traveling for hours, and all of the other little things. I think we would make a reality show about how tough it is to be in the band.
To end, here’s the question I ask everybody: If a song played every time Outshyne walked into a room, what song would it be?
I’d have to be something cool. Probably 50 Cent “P.I.M.P” That’s just the first thing that popped into my head.