Mitchell Tenpenny has had a big year with 2 number hits back-to-back and a new album This Is The Heavy out tomorrow. He stopped by The Bobby Bones Show to talk about the new project and share some stories.
Earlier this year Tenpenny scored a number 1 with "Truth About You." He recalled his friend in the writing room telling a story that said something to the effect of "If you quit telling lies about me, I won't tell the truth about you," which sparked Tenpenny to say he knew how they could make that into a song. Which is how "Truth About You" was born and turned into a massive hit. His second number 1 that just happened was his collaboration with Chris Young called "At the End of the Bar."
With his new album This Is The Heavy, Tenpenny could have some more hits coming for him since there are 20 songs on the project. He admitted they thought they were done when they hit 11 songs, but then he kept writing songs he loved and they kept adding them to the project. Once they hit 19 songs, he knew he had to make it an even 20. Tenpenny has written so many songs in the last several years and since he hasn't put out an album in 4 years, he wanted to include a lot of that music on this project.
Before Tenpenny was a touring country star, he was in school to be a songwriter. Admitting that songwriting school didn't include a lot of studying, but more like working with other songwriters to constantly write songs. When he graduated, he took a job in construction being up in the raptors, working on drywall. He finally got a deal with a publishing company and quit his construction job. Though the publishing deal didn't make him enough money to live on so he picked up a side gig working valet at a restaurant. He recalled two interactions parking famous country artists' cars. Tim McGraw showed up in his Bentley, and Tenpenny was too afraid to drive it so he moved it up about two feet and left it there. Then Martina McBride showed up one night with her producer, but they drove separate cars. McBride was about to hand Tenpenny a $100 bill when her producer said, don't worry about it I'll take care of him when he gets both of our cars. The producer ended up only tipping Tenpenny $5.