Trace Adkins on Career, American Made & A Capitol Fourth 2026

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Welcome to Pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon, your pop culture news, views, reviews, and celebrity interviews on all the movies, TV, music, and pop culture you crave weekly. Here's Kyle McMahon.

**Kyle McMahon** (0:15)
All right. Well, first of all, thank you so much Trace for speaking with me again, and welcome to Pop Culture Weekly. We're going to talk about PBS as a Capitol Fourth and your new single, but I'd like to look at as you're celebrating 30 years. It's a long time in any career, let alone in the music industry. When you look back to 96, you released Dreamin Out Loud.
What is the biggest surprise that you would say, Trace back then would say to Trace today or the opposite?

**Trace Adkins** (0:52)
Well, when Dreamin Out Loud came out, my first single, I think, got in the teams. Then my second single went top five. My third single went number one. My fourth single went number one. The album went platinum. And I thought, wow, this is going to be easy, you know?
And then thing, and then reality sets in, and it's not always going to be like that, you know? The sophomore slump and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I would just say to myself back then, just be patient. It's all going to be all right, you know? And everything's going to work itself out.
But I, you know, 30 years, I wouldn't have even allowed myself to dream that I would still be relevant after 30 years. You know, that's a long time. And I'm very grateful. And, you know, it's been a dream come true and dreams do come true.

**Kyle McMahon** (1:56)
I love that.
And you're on tour right now. Is there a particular moment, you know, where it really hit you that you've been doing this for three decades?

**Trace Adkins** (2:08)
Yeah, I think it was that first weekend that we went out on tour this year. And I started setting up the first single that came out in 96, which was There's a Girl in Texas. And I was telling the story about it before I sang the song. And I started setting it up and it started to hit me. It was like, wow, you know, this was it. You know, this was this was the and it just happened to be a song that I wrote. And the president of the record label said, this is the one that I think will introduce you to everybody. And the way that you should be introduced. And let's go with this one. And and it because it was personal to me. And and it still is the lyric lyrically that song. It it it means more to me now than it did when I wrote it. It means so now, but it but it but the lyrics really hit me hard, you know, now when I do it. So yeah, it was that first weekend out that it was they dawned on me what this all meant.

**Kyle McMahon** (3:15)
When you're putting I'm sorry.

**Trace Adkins** (3:17)
No, no, no.

**Kyle McMahon** (3:19)
When you're putting together, you know, a set list that's looking over your entire career thus far, how do you balance playing, you know, the hits and the songs that that people want to see versus the songs that mean the most to you personally as an artist or, you know, have some specific, you know, the reason that you want to do this song for this tour, how do you kind of balance that?

**Trace Adkins** (3:44)
Yeah, well, I do a greatest hit show, you know, I know what the fans want. They want to hear what they've heard on the radio. But since it is a little different, you know, 30 year anniversary tour, I do slip to a three in there, for my own gratification, you know.
Deep album cuts, that meant a lot to me. And I don't do many of them. I do two or three. But I am putting two or three of those in there this year.

**Kyle McMahon** (4:17)
That's great.
And you've watched, you know, over your career thus far, you've watched the music, music itself and the music industry change, you know, so much over the last 30 years, what's one thing today in the country music scene that excite, excites you? And what's the, what's one thing that you hope never changes in the industry?

**Trace Adkins** (4:46)
My gosh, that's a loaded question. You're trying to get me in trouble.
I would, I would hope that vocal ability and that kind of talent never goes away. I don't, I don't care how much you can digitally massage things and make them sound right. I don't think that's what this business should be about. You know, it should be straight up, you know, just sing it. And, and it is what it is.