Clayton Johnson – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the country artist, Clayton Johnson, shares one of his stories from being on the road. You can check out the story, after the break.

Ironically, my craziest tour story is one where I’m not actually on the tour….But was? The story starts in 2011, I had already been releasing my own music and playing guitar for various other artists. Some cool overseas tours, full U.S. tours, music videos, award shows, you name it. I got a call from a friend one day asking me to play guitar for a young, 18-year-old new country artist who had just won the 10th season of American Idol. Scotty McCreery. I had seen the season and loved this low, deep country vocal from this scrawny, clean-shaven 18-year-old boy at the time. His mom was by his every side, but a very sweet woman! Almost immediately after winning American Idol, we filmed the music video for his very first single called, “I Love You This Big.” Scotty was as nice as could be, and we even filmed a little behind-the-scenes special for CMT that day. (His loving mother also made an appearance in the video) When the time came for his first tour, I was told Scotty wouldn’t be needing band members. I just assumed this meant there was someone else lined up in my place. I was bummed, but things happen, so I understood. A couple of months later, some friends attending Scotty’s first arena tour sent me a text. “You looked great up there! You Killed it!” I was bewildered because obviously, I wasn’t on the tour… or so I thought. Then they sent me a picture…When you are featured in any music video/television show/live performance, etc, you generally sign your rights away for them to use any and all footage of you, and that’s exactly what they did! Rather than have a full band, they used a giant screen to project our filmed performance onto the big screen behind him in the arena. So there I was, on Scotty’s tour, after all, performing my heart out night after night…Just not in person. Wild!

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