Corey Kent has been quietly building his fanbase for a few years now. Husband and father first, rockstar second, Kent is maintaining a humility that allows him to both show up on stage and show up at home. When Kent lost his first publishing deal, the Oklahoma native moved his family to Texas to ensure he could work and pay the bills, putting his dreams on hold to provide for his family. Fast forward a few years and he’s steadily building a following that thrives off a mutual tenacity – the Black Bandana spirit.

After performing at C2C London in 2023 and supporting Ashley McBryde in January 2024, Kent is back in the UK this February for his own headline tour. Hitting venues across the UK and Ireland, Kent culminates his tour at the iconic Electric Ballroom in London on 11th February.

Joining from his home in Texas, Corey Kent spoke to Building Our Own Nashville about why his ’24 Live album is so special, his upcoming Black Bandana Tour in the UK and what kept him going through the tough days of starting over.

Is there anything about the UK that you’re looking forward to, because you’ve been over here a few times now, is there anything you look forward to or anything you can’t stand about being over here?

Um…Nothing I can’t stand about it. I might have just hit the good parts, I don’t know, but I’ve really enjoyed my time in the UK. I’ll tell you the thing that I look forward to most – I think America has really great boutique coffee shops; its artisan, like, it’s almost halfway between tea and coffee. I love black coffee, that’s what I drink when I’m here but when I go to the UK, I don’t know what it is, but y’all have far superior cappuccinos and lattés. I’m a black coffee guy but when I get to the UK, I’m gonna have a cappuccino every morning.
I love that we come over there about the same time every year and I love the weather. I think it’s unique. Here in Texas, it’s so hot and humid and it’s super flat and it’s its own vibe. The UK is such a unique change in scenery for me. It’s kind of gloomy and as an emotional artist, it’s inspiring. I just love it. I never really know what time it is because it’s like half sunshine all the time. I’ve enjoyed my time over there. The food’s amazing – I love the English breakfast, I wish we had more of that over here.

Your ’24 Live album just dropped – perfect timing for us over here to get excited about your tour so thank you for that. You have ‘Bixby’ as the encore but you also have ‘Notorious’ in there which has, I believe, never been played before – are you ever going to play that again?

(He laughs)…I don’t know. We haven’t since then. I would be shocked if we ever recorded it again. I do think there’s definitely opportunities to play it live again. But I wanted to do that – it was very intentional. It’s a song that I’ve loved but it’s never made its way on to the records. I wanted to give a unique experience but also create a reason for our fans to listen to the record. It’s not just the same songs that we’re out there playing live. You know, Kenny Chesney is kind of famous for a song ‘Back Where I Come From’ and the only version that exists is on a live record. I just remember thinking that’s so cool, I didn’t even know it was a live record it sounded so good. But also, just to know that that song that has been on the radio so many times wasn’t recorded in a studio, it was at a show, so I was inspired by that and kind of kept that in the back of my memory bank and when we did a live record, wanted to do something similar. I don’t know, maybe we will play it again live and maybe it’ll live forever on the live record.

I feel like listening to an album as a whole is having its moment again and people are going back and appreciating the album rather than just playlisting stuff so that’s really special, like you say, to bring people in to listen to that particular record.

I think so too and one of my favourite quotes that I’ve heard in a while is ‘singles never made superstars, it’s always been albums’. And if I think back and hold that up to the artists that I listen to and the artists that have stood the test of time. It’s true. You don’t talk about the one song. For Willie Nelson, you talk about ‘Red Headed Stranger’, for Eric Church, you talk about ‘Chief’, you’re talking about full records. For Kacey Musgraves, I talk about ‘Golden Hour’ it’s not the song it’s the body of work. Even live records – I think they have a very special place. I’m very much one of the artists that still carefully crafts records and even when it wasn’t cool, I was trying to do that because it was important to me as a listener and I’m glad that they’re having a comeback now. When I think of Sabrina Carpenter, I’m gong to think of this record that she’s put out. It’s a body of work, it’s a stamp of time.

Keeping on the theme of records then, your ‘Black Bandana’ album – my two favourite questions to ask – what is your favourite song to play and the hardest song to write?

Favourite song to play from that record…man…the easy answer is ‘This Heart’. That’s the fan favourite. But basically, in the recent shows, my favourite one to see people’s response to is ‘Never Ready’. ‘Never Ready’ is connecting with people on a really deep level and you can see it. And people are just crying while they’re singing along to it.

I’m actually really nervous to hear that live because I will just cry.

Well it does, it moves people. I think that’s the whole objective of music is to try to make people feel what you feel. If you can accomplish that and move somebody to tears with 3 minutes of a song, you’ve really captured something special. You know, I’ve seen grown men – grown Navy Seals, just the most badass US military guys I’ve met – in tears over that song, because maybe they lost their dad or they’re remembering the first time they had their first child. It’s a special song. I’ve loved seeing people’s reaction to that song and how they connect with it on such a deep level.

Yeah, because it has a stage a life that’s so real for anyone. Anyone can relate to that song.

Yeah and that was the goal. The first two verses were written about my life and my experience and the last verse – my dad is still alive – but my co-writer had walked through a really tough season where he had to say goodbye to his dad. These songs are equally as much the song writers as they are mine. When we write these songs together, this is a culmination of our life experiences and pulling from each of our stories and experiences to craft the most beautiful song that we can. So I was grateful for his experience and his contribution. That third verse is so powerful to me. You know, we were able to work on the wording of it all together, but I think we just captured the emotion because we had somebody that had lived it who was able to help us express what it felt like. I’m really proud of that one, you know, when I look back on my catalogue of work, that will be one of the highlights. This is a song I’m really proud of. It just means a lot.

Hardest one to write?

…I don’t know, man. ‘Ain’t Gonna Lie’ was a departure and ‘Black Bandana’ was a departure from what we did. So those two songs…’Ain’t Gonna Lie’ was tough for me to write because my life is so good right now like I love my wife, and we have a great relationship and we’re raising these beautiful kids and I’m very much in love with my person. She’s it for me. It’s tough to flip the switch and go like what would it be like if she left and write a song from that perspective. But it’s also from a genuine place because all you’ve got to do is think about what it would be like without her. But it’s tough to flip the switch to go from real life to a hypothetical situation. And then ‘Black Bandana’ just had so much meaning behind it. I wanted to capture the symbolism in a way that people didn’t have to question what it meant but also in a way so that it wasn’t cheesy. I think we were able to do that with ‘Black Bandana’ but we probably wrote three or four different choruses in different feels with different tempos and different keys until we landed on one that felt like the right move.

The Black Bandana is so synonymous with you and your brand now and I know on the press release it says it’s your ‘rally cry’ but what does that represent for you.

When I look back on my journey to right now, I feel like there’s a lot of people that identify with it. Feeling like the person who’s got to work twice as hard to get half as far. You could call them underdogs or black sheep. But at the heart of it, the underdogs or the black sheep refuse to lose. It’s one thing to be an underdog or to have the odds stacked against you but it’s another thing to go ‘I’m gonna find a way to win, even though the deck is stacked against me’. And that’s what the black bandana mentality is – if the odds are one in a million, you think you can be the one, and when everyone else gives up, you find a way to reinvent yourself and get where you want to go. And to my surprise, when I wrote that song, I didn’t know how people would connect with it, and I didn’t know how many people would feel the same way. That’s how I’ve always felt like I’m the guy that’s got to work twice as hard to get half as far and the second I made peace with that was when things started happening. I no longer felt sorry for myself for that, it’s just that’s the hand I’m dealt so find a way to win. I think there’s a lot of people in a lot of different careers that feel that way. Whether it’s a fire fighter or a schoolteacher. We all have our own things that we’re battling in life and there’s somebody else right beside you who looks like it comes easy for and if you’re not the person that it just falls into their lap for, then you’ll probably feel this way.

I guess that kind of answers my next question. When things kind of took a turn and you had to go back and start again and graft, what was your North Star? What kept you going to be like, this is the dream and there’s absolutely no other option?

One – my family. My wife has always been my biggest supporter and that sounds cliché, but even to the extent of my in-laws my kids, my wife, our friends, our extended family. I was playing at a Mexican restaurant in Lewisville Texas in 2021 and it was for free Mexican food and like 100 bucks and they would show up to support me because they didn’t believe that my career was over. They would show up to this Mexican restaurant and listen to me sing the same songs that I always sing and they might have been the only people there sometimes but they would support me even in those moments. They never gave up hope on my behalf. I remember there was actually a person there, a lady that saw me for the first time playing and she was like, “we just saw Morgan Wallen and we think you’re every bit as good, don’t give up, you’re gonna get there.” She was like, “I don’t even understand how you’re playing in this Mexican restaurant right now in Lewisville”. I explained to her you, know, I moved my family here and prioritised being a husband and a father, and I’m working at a pavement company because music isn’t an option right now it’s not paying the bills. And fast forward now, we’re gonna be touring around with Morgan Wallen later this year.

Yes! That announcement just came out!

(He laughs). I would say I just had a support system in Texas of fans, of family, of friends, my kids, my wife, that supported me even when it didn’t make any sense to, they were just by my side. They didn’t give up hope. And I think that spurred me on like man if these people think that I can still do it then maybe I can and also having this weird sixth sense about where you’re going. I still have that with my radio career in country music, like we haven’t had a tonne of success there in the last couple of singles but it’s like, I know that what we’re doing is quality and our music is connecting deeply with the fans and it’s only a matter of time before it connects deeply with the masses. I can’t really explain it. It’s something you just know deep down and either you’ve got a gut feeling about something or you don’t. and learning to listen to that intuition and listen to the voice in your own head instead of all the voices around you. That’s the hardest part. There’s a lot of voices around you telling you what’s possible what’s not possible what you should do, what you shouldn’t do and I found that the more I trust the voice inside my head, the more things work out and just trying to do away with the noise.

I’m going to sound like a super fan now, and I am, but I saw you at C2C when you were here 2023?

Yeah – wow.

And then London with Ashley McBryde and you did the little pop up afterwards for the album, and then I’ll see you in Manchester this year. But I always feel like your performances, you manage to appear like just a guy, like your mate is on the stage. What goes through your head before you go out on stage to deliver such a humble but incredible show.

(He pauses). I’m not trying to be anything that I’m not. Like I think that’s the reality of it. I don’t walk out there and say I’ve gotta be some super star. I don’t got to wear my sunglasses inside. I just don’t feel the need to do any of that. I think humility comes from living a real life, you know, I come home, and I dropped my kids of at school this morning, vacuuming my own floors like I do live a very normal life outside of music which probably comes as a shock to a lot of people. I’m trying to be a great artist but I’m also trying to be great a husband and a great father and you can’t have an ego and be those things. You can’t be a great dad if you have a massive ego. Laughs. You gotta think about other people first. I don’t know, I think that probably plays in to it, to some extent. And some of it is also…imposter syndrome is a real thing. Sometimes you get in your own head about it like jeeze I really don’t deserve to be here like I have a double platinum record and a number 1 hit and people listen to my music on the radio and I’m just a normal dude like this is crazy. So, I think it’s easy to stay humble when you realise what a long shot career you have. There are very few people that get to do what we do. You’re more likely to play in the Superbowl than you are to have a number 1 hit on country radio. Not even close. I think there’s been like 287 people have a number 1 hit on country radio or something like that and you’ve got 200 people a year playing at the Superbowl and it’s just like it’s a wild thing to think about. When you zoom out and realise how fortunate you are to be doing it, it’s hard not to have the humility when you step out on stage. Also, there’s this rockstar energy that happens when people are that into your music so you want to give that energy back. It’s a reciprocal thing.

Corey Kent’s Black Bandana 2025 UK & Ireland Tour Dates Include:

February
1st Dublin, IE The Academy (Green Room)
2nd Belfast, NI The Limelight 1
4th Glasgow, UK SWG3 TV Studio
7th Manchester, UK Manchester Academy 2
8th Birmingham, UK O2 Academy 2
9th Bristol, UK The Trinity Centre
11th London, UK Electric Ballroom