Playing for the working man

By Jerry Fink

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Eddie Montgomery — half of the country duo Montgomery Gentry — gushes with unbridled enthusiasm.

“Brother, I tell you, I’m so happy I’ve got to sit on my hands to keep from waving at everybody,” Montgomery says from Portland, Ore.

He’s got lots to wave about. His duo is opening for Toby Keith on his “Biggest and Baddest” tour, which stops Saturday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Montgomery and Troy Gentry have another hit, “Back When I Knew It All,” which shot to the top of the charts this year.

“Man, things have been absolutely rockin’ for us, man,” Montgomery says. “We don’t call anybody fans, we call them friends. We can’t thank all our friends enough for going out there and buying the records and the tickets to the show.”

Montgomery and Gentry once performed in the band Early Tymz with Eddie’s younger brother, John Michael Montgomery, who eventually struck out on his own and became a country superstar.

Montgomery Gentry burst on the national scene in 1999 and has had a string of chart toppers from “Hillbilly Shoes” and “Daddy Won’t Sell the Farm” through “Something to Be Proud Of” and “Lucky Man.”

Montgomery talked about his career, his future and his longtime partner T-Roy, his nickname for Gentry.

Q: Is Nashville home?

T-Roy moved to Nashville; he’s better at the business side of it than I am. If I lived there I’d end up in jail and probably beatin’ the hell out of somebody. I own about 300 acres up there in Kentucky. I stay out there on a dead-end road and do my thing and I don’t bother nobody and nobody bothers me.

Were you surprised that the latest album came out so strong?

Hell no. We picked the songs, brother. That’s one thing T-Roy and I always do. I make a joke about it but Mom was a drummer, Dad was a guitar player and the bartenders were our babysitters. T-Roy’s dad owned a bar all his life and we played in it. We sing about the good, the bad, the ugly and the party on the weekend. We figured when we got signed to a recording contract this is our ship and if anybody’s going to sink it it’s going to be us — so we pick our own songs.

You seem to have a knack for it.

I reckon when you grow up in the honky-tonks and the clubs and hear somebody coming in celebrating a promotion, somebody coming through who got fired from a gig, somebody getting divorced, getting married or just living life — when we’re picking songs, we know exactly who we are. When we grew up our heroes were Charlie Daniels, Merle Haggard, Waylon and Willie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker, guys like that, man. We wanted to be them. You heard them. When you played nightclubs you done that kind of stuff and sang them kind of songs. Your whole repertoire of songs would be about the workin’ class people and the people growin’ up and going to school.

Speaking of growing up, were your parents actually musicians?

I wasn’t joking. Momma was a drummer, my dad was a guitar player and bartenders were our babysitters. Honky-tonk musicians don’t make a whole lot of money so they took us (Eddie and brother John Michael) with them. Also, when I got older I figured out another reason they took us with them. We was their roadies — I was tearin’ down Mom’s drums, me and John was carrying the P.A. system in and out. We started in with Mom and Dad’s band. I took over playing drums when I was 12 and John probably was playing lead at 13, something like that. We were playing in all the honky-tonks. Nobody said anything about it. We left Dad’s band when we was about 16 and started our own group. Then I met T-Roy out of high school and we were off, playing five, six, seven nights a week — that’s what we wanted to do. We didn’t know anything else but farmin’ so we were either out on a farm balin’ hay, cuttin’ tobacco and hangin’ it or playin’ music, and we liked playin’ music a hell of a lot better than cuttin’ tobacco and hangin’ it in the back of the barn.

When did you last tour with Toby Keith?

On the “Neon Circus” tour (in the early 2000s). It was wild as hell. This tour has been great, so far. Totally rockin’. When we started this thing, what we wanted to do was to do this for the workin’ man, to price the tickets for the workin’-class people and the people in school. That’s what we’ve done. (In most other markets, the cheapest ticket for the Toby Keith-Montgomery Gentry show is $20, although it’s $82.95 in Las Vegas.) It’s been unbelievable how it’s been goin’. If you’re wantin’ to hear a sad song or a cryin’ song, this ain’t the show to come see ’cause it’s nothin’ but rockin’ from the time it takes off till it ends.

What happens when the tour ends?

We have some dates to play stretchin’ to November and Thanksgiving and then we’ll take time off for the families. We stay pretty busy all year long, either hunting for songs or getting ready for another album or touring.

We’re always looking for songs. It’s the only way to stay on top of the game — you’re only as big as your last hit. We’re always working on it, trying to stay on top of it. People sometimes ask us, “What do you want when it’s all said and done?” There’s a lot of young artists out there and I’m not sure they aren’t just throwing records against the wall hoping they’ll make it, but most of them won’t be on a jukebox in 20 years. What me and T-Roy want, like, you know — when you go to a jukebox in any honky-tonk in the world 100 years from now I promise you there’ll be a Charlie Daniels song, a Waylon and Willie song, a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, a Marshall Tucker song, and if somewhere in the middle we can have our name, then we can look at each other and say we’ve done something.