Scotty McCreery Admits He’s Still Trying To Process His Chart-Topping Success: ‘To Have Five In A Row Is Just Bananas’

Scotty McCreery is celebrating the success of his latest single, “Damn Strait,” which spent three weeks atop the Billboard Country Airplay Chart and marked his fifth consecutive No. 1 single since winning Season 10’s American Idol back in 2011. 

Opening up about his latest achievement at his No. 1 party for his three most recent singles, the 28-year-old North Carolina native said he is still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he has accomplished five hits in a row throughout his career so far. 

“I’m still kind of processing it, I think, because to me, it still feels like yesterday,” McCreery told Country Now and other media on Wednesday (Aug. 10) afternoon. “My biggest goal – and I said this all the time – was I just want one song at the top of the charts. In my mind, that’s when you’ve known you made it, right? So to have five in a row is just bananas. We don’t take it lightly. We’re celebrating. We’re grateful and just having so much fun with this.” 

Co-penned by Jim Collins and Trent Tomlinson, “Damn Strait” serves as both a heartbreak song as well as an ode to George Strait. The cleverly-written tune appears as the second single from McCreery’s fifth studio album, Same Truck, which also includes his chart-topping hit, “You Time.” Before that, McCreery released his album Seasons Change, which spawned three No. 1 singles including, “Five More Minutes,” “This Is It,” and “In Between.”  

When asked if he feels any pressure to continue rolling out the hits, McCreery says “No,” and shares that his focus has shifted to only making music that comes from the heart. 

“After Seasons Change, after having ‘Five More Minutes,’ ‘In Between,’ and ‘This Is It,’ I felt pressure with the next album. But, with ‘You Time’ and ‘Damn Strait,’ we have our ‘Five More Minutes’ song, and we have ‘This Is It,’” McCreery reasoned. “That definitely blew my mind. But, at this point, I want to write music that I love, and I know I believe in and hope people will relate to. Whatever it does on the charts, it does.”

“One thing that I’ve learned is when I was just getting started in songwriting, I used to shy away from my own life…. I was like, ‘What’s going to get me a hit on the radio?’” he added. “I didn’t get those hits on the radio. Then I finally realized. I’m just going to write straight from the heart. I think I had to mature to really understand that – and as I’ve done that, I’ve realized, ‘Man. You know what? We’re all people here. We’re all humans here. We’re all more alike than we are different. Everybody knows what love feels like. Everybody knows what disappointment feels like. Everybody has these feelings that are kind of universal. So, if you write what you’re going through, then chances are somebody else has gone through that too. So, I don’t see myself straying from the autobiographical writing about my life type of songs.”

McCreery has chronicled much of his life in his music throughout the years. Take, for example, his song, “This Is It.” The romantic track was initially not intended to be on his Seasons Change album but landed on the project after it made its way to his label. McCreery co-wrote the song for his proposal to his high school sweetheart turned wife Gabi McCreery, whom he wed on June 16, 2018. Now that the married couple is expecting their first baby, a boy, McCreery says he is finding new inspiration in the writing room. 

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“We’re just starting to get back into doing writes together,” he shared. “Even this morning, I was sitting down watching TV, and an idea came to me about a song for a baby coming on the way. I just started writing down some lyrics. I was like, ‘This might be a song.’ So, it is definitely on my mind.”

In June, McCreery and Gabi announced via People they were expecting their first child. The bundle of joy is due to arrive on Halloween.