Brad Paisley is a country music icon and guitar playing master these days…but at one point, he got by in the music industry just on his looks!

Brad shares, “I started playing live music at 10 or 11. Playing a little band I had at 13 and singing…I was booked pretty solid in this little town where we were from because I was a novelty act. It was a 12 year old standing there and singing Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless the USA’? you can’t go wrong (laughter). That’s just money in the bank.”

But his dad gave Brad some sound advice, that he took to heart…“My dad used to tell me when I was playing music, ‘you’re pretty good for 12, but when you’re 18 you gotta be better than this because you won’t be cute anymore.'”

Now that might sound harsh, but Brad fully appreciated the frank comment from his dad, “He would never mince words that way, and that was truly good advice. And something that I think people need to realize. At some point you gotta get good at something. At first, maybe you worked your way to where you are getting’ but get good at it! This is a day and age where everybody thinks you can just do an embarrassing video and post it on Instagram and have a few seconds of fame, but do something else. Go get good at something.””

Well, Brad did go and get good at something…because all these years later, he’s still making music, like his new single “City of Music” — which he says in an ode to his new hometown, Nashville.

Check out the full track here – “City of Music” from Brad Paisley.

Photo Courtesy of Sony Music Nashville