Drew Baldridge Was Told He Wasn’t ‘Cool Enough,’ Now He’s Embracing Who He Is On ‘FARM FAITH FAMILY’ [Exclusive]

It’s the morning of his album release, marking his first full-length major-label album, FARM FAITH FAMILY, and fittingly, Drew Baldridge is on his farm in Illinois, surrounded by his family as he prepares for a big album release show on Saturday.

The 16-track collection is out now, and he admits he is feeling “all the feels” as the album is officially in the hands of fans everywhere.

“It feels like Christmas, but all my presents are open,” he shared with Country Now over the phone.

Baldridge spent years pouring “a lot of blood, sweat, and tears” into his career. With a No. 1 single under his belt and a major label now backing him, he says this release feels different.

“We’ve worked years for this…And now it’s just kind of out there and you just hope it does what you think it can do. You hope it touches people. You hope it makes an impact. I mean, we worked hard on these songs and in the studio and getting everything right, all the little pieces to make it perfect…I put out a record solely by myself, but this is the first with a major partner. And that comes extra weight, I guess,” he explained. “People expect it to do more. People really want to see it to do more. There’s a lot more people involved. And I was just telling my wife the other day, I was just like,’I just want it to win for everybody around me.’ You start looking around and you got all these new people, you got managers, you got your band guys, you got your producer, you got your label, you have your radio team. And I just want to win for them. I want this record to do some amazing things for them.”

When you talk about an artist experiencing the highs and lows of the music industry, Baldridge has seen plenty of both. He faced rejection, persevered when his label closed its doors in 2019, and kept going. Along the way, he also heard plenty of opinions about what he needed to do to make it in Nashville. One of the comments that stuck with him came from a record executive who told him he simply wasn’t “cool enough.”

Instead of changing who he was, Baldridge leaned into the man he had always been: a small-town guy who loves God, enjoys the rural way of life and values his family.

He channeled that experience into “Cool Enough Now,” a song he co-wrote with Tim Nichols and Monty Criswell that captures that pivotal chapter in his career, from being told he needed to become someone else to finding the confidence to stay true to himself.

“I’ve never really been cool my whole life. I’m just a small town boy, blue jeans, t-shirt kind of kid. And I think a lot of it built up over years, but it really hit me when I was sitting across from a record guy and I played him some music and he’s like, ‘Man, it’s just not cool enough. You need to listen to this artist and this artist. And that’s what’s happening right now. Look at this guy.’ And I had somebody one time told me, ‘Look at this artist. He’s got tattoos. He’s got a cool vibe. He’s got this cool look.’”

Baldridge immediately knew he wasn’t going to sacrifice who he was to potentially further his career. 

I’m like, ‘I’m not those people. I’m never going to be that. I am who I am and I’m going to stand for what I’m going to stand for.’ And if that doesn’t work out for me in the end, I’m not going to chase something that I’m not.”

For fans wanting to know exactly who Baldridge is, all they have to do is listen to FARM FAITH FAMILY. From top to bottom, the album is a reflection of the man he has become and the things that matter most to him.

The 16-track project is intentionally divided into three sections, with each one representing a different part of Baldridge’s life and identity.

“Farm, Faith, Family are three words that just really built me and really built who I am…The first third of the album is Farm. It talks about where I come from. It talks about the country boy that I am. The middle third is faith, snd it’s all songs about not only God, but faith in yourself and faith in other people. And then the last is family. It talks about my wife and my kids. So it’s fun how it’s broken down into three different tiers and I think when people walk away from this, they’ll be like, ‘oh, we know Drew. We know what he stands for.’”

That sense of authenticity carries throughout the album, particularly on songs that tackle difficult subjects that some artists may shy away from. Baldridge addresses domestic abuse on “Him For Her,” suicide awareness on “Flowers On A Stone” and redemption on “People Can Change.”

For Baldridge, these aren’t simply songs with important messages. He believes they are part of the reason he was given this opportunity to make music in the first place.

“Those are messages that I feel like God gave me to give to people. I really am lucky that I’m with a label like BMG that lets me put out the kind of music that I want. And it’s not like, ‘Well, it doesn’t sound like what’s on the radio. It’s too this, it’s too that. Put out what you want and hit home with the people that you think it’ss going to hit home with.”

That freedom to make music on his own terms is something Baldridge doesn’t take for granted. After years of setbacks, including losing his first record deal and spending time pursuing opportunities that never quite worked out, he now looks at this chapter of his career as a second chance.

“I feel like my life, my music career right now is, I’ve got a second chance here. I had a record deal for four years and I put out songs and they didn’t work. I had four failed singles and Nashville was like, oh man, I don’t. I tried to get record deals and I couldn’t until we did it independently. And then we got a deal now with which is really cool. But I feel like God gave me this second chance and he’s putting songs on my heart for a purpose that people need in their lives.”