Don’t look now, but Georgia country acts Lady Antebellum and Billy Currington are about to be joined on the Billboard charts by native Atlantan singer-songwriter Jaron Lowenstein.
His act, Jaron and the Long Road to Love is currently hovering just outside the Top 40 with the surprise country hit, “I Pray For You.”
Even more surprising, the hilarious revenge ditty is blowing up the charts and attracting attention from CMT and Country Weekly without the support of a record label.
After toiling for both Island Records and Columbia in the last millennium with his twin brother Evan (Evan and Jaron‘s self-titled debut album for Sony yielded the hit single, “Crazy for the Girl” in 2000), Jaron issued the new song on his own label, Jaronwood.
And since we’ve been writing about the kid since 1994 when he wasn’t yet old enough to drink in the clubs he was gigging in, the current Los Angeles and Nashville resident graciously agreed to speak to us about his latest hit.
“This is really all about the power of social media,” Lowenstein tells Intel. “We’ve now got about 30,000 fans online who are helping the single sell and get added at country radio. It’s really amazing. It’s also great to hear from old fans in Atlanta who have been listening since I was a kid.”
A hit Facebook fan page and Twitter account have aided in getting the word out.
Lowenstein says fans can relate to the humorous spin on getting dumped as well.
Sample lyrics from “I Pray For You”:
“I pray your brakes go out / Running down a hill / I pray a flower pot falls / From a window sill / And knocks you in the head like I’d like to.”
Praises longtime fan and Dave FM morning man Jimmy Baron: “I love the new direction of Jaron’s music. His cleverness really shows in his lyrics and he’s got a great ear for catchy hooks.”
As with all top-notch revenge songs, “Pray” was inspired by a true story.
Recalls the singer with a shutter: “I was seeing this girl and discovered that ‘We need to take some time off from each other’ actually meant ‘I’ve been [expletive] another guy for four months.’ ”
Later, nursing a broken heart and a couple of beers, Lowenstein was trying to make co-writer Joel Brentlinger laugh about his ill-fated love life when “Pray” popped out.
Lowenstein then road-tested the song during gigs in Eastern Kentucky and at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville and audiences “flipped out.”
Says Lowenstein: “That’s when I knew we had a successful song on our hands.”
For the video to “Pray,” Lowenstein cribbed a page from Reba McEntire‘s current hit video for “Consider Me Gone.”
And turned it sideways.
“At the end of Reba’s clip, the dude shows up at the door and all is forgiven,” he explains. “That just doesn’t happen.”
Hence, the final video frame of “Pray for You” features a gorgeous repentant ex-girlfriend eating a face full of door.
So does the singer’s real-life ex know she’s inspired a hit?
Laughs Lowenstein: “Honestly, I don’t think she knows it’s about her. She’s such a piece of work, she would probably love it. She’s probably out there thinking, ‘Oh, cool. He’s praying for me.'”
