CMABrad Paisley takes a break from his own Crushin’ It World Tour Wednesday night to open for The Rolling Stones‘ at Nashville’s LP Field. It’s been years since Brad’s opened for another artist, but he didn’t think twice when the Stones asked him to be their special guest. Rascal Flatts, Kid Rock and Ed Sheeran are among the other headliners opening for the Stones on their current Zip Code tour.
Says Brad, “It just says it all about them that headliners open for them. It’s mind blowing. And everybody says, ‘Yep. When do you want me to do it?’ Nobody says no. I think [Bruce] Springsteen would do it. Anybody they want to ask would go, ‘Yeah, I’ll come play.'”
Brad is a huge fan of The Rolling Stones, and he got to sit in with them a few years ago for a performance of “Dead Flowers” during a show in Philadelphia. Brad says of that experience, “I likened being on the stage to finally getting to sort of bathe in your favorite soup.”
As for the band’s connection to country music, Brad considers The Rolling Stones to be among the top country groups in history, based solely on the influence their songs “Honky Tonk Women” and “Wild Horses” have had on country artists.
Brad explains, “I like to say they’re the number-one rock band in the world, and they’re about in the top five in country bands, just counting the four or five songs that they’ve done over the years that are absolutely, indisputably country. It’s as influential as anything in our format.”
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