Category: Q+A

What are your travel must-haves?

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I always travel with my Leatherman, if it’s not on my person it’s in my suitcase. It’s a multi-tool: a knife and a pliers, and a bottle opener. I use it all the time.

And then, I always have some Gaffer tape, and my banjo picks. They’re in a little case, and I keep them in my pocket at all times. You never know when you’re going to be attacked by a banjo. You have to be ready!  … I’ve got picks that I’m really fond of, so I always like to have them on me.

I also always travel with my own computer mouse. It’s a Logitech Marble. I can’t work on Pro Tools without it. If I have work to do that’s remote, I won’t hesitate to take it out.

Excerpt from TravelandLesiure.com  “Zac Brown Band’s John Driskell Hopkins Talks Life on the Road” by Caroline Hallemann (find her on Twitter / on Instagram)

[homegrown] was the most-added song at country radio last week. Do you worry before releasing new work that it won’t work this time, and does that give you any kind of relief when it does work?

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Well, you’re always excited to hear that people are enjoying it, and we’ve had lots of songs that I thought were really fantastic that have done really well, and some that have done pretty well, and some that we were surprised … that didn’t do as well as they should have, in our opinion. You kinda have to be ready for anything to happen, but what I will say about that is, we’re prepared to go the distance with what we believe to be the best that we can provide to our fans and to the world, whether it charts really well or not. We’re just hoping to continue to really provide the best quality that we can.

Excerpt from: Zac Brown Band’s John Driskell Hopkins Talks New Single, Upcoming Album + Pre-Super Bowl Gig By Sterling Whitaker

Uncaged wins you the Grammy for Best Country Album. What kind of reaction do you have to that?

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Well, it’s funny, ‘cause that was kind of the least country album we’d made to date, you know?

[Laughs] But it goes back to that whole genre thing. The genre seems to be changing, and a lot of it’s the more popular bands in quote-unquote ‘country’ are writing pop songs and are writing rock songs and things like that. Our most country tune on the record is arguably ‘The Wind,’ and it has done the least amount at radio as a single. [Laughs] It was kind of like it was too country for country.

Excerpt from Lehigh Valley Music Interviewing Zac Brown Band’s John Driskell Hopkins: Group wants to keep it real, reach everyone