NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Last week, country mega-star Mitchell Tenpenny performed an acoustic livestream show at Nashville’s Pegleg Porker where he played fan-favorite hits in their upstairs event space. The show was hosted by Prevacid and was streamed live on TikTok.
Before his set, he sat with me to talk about why he teamed up with Prevacid for the live event and about the healing power of music.
He told me, “There is it’s literally limitless of what music has done for me as far as I mean career and then getting over breakups. It started as therapy and ended up being my career. From every angle, there’s always a song for everything. Every moment in my life, every bit of drama or every bit of highlight that we have, there’s always a song for it.”
Nowadays with streaming and self-selected playlists, everyone has their songs that mean something to them.
Tenpenny said, “I’m honored to write songs that some people put on their playlists. Right. And it is really cool when people say that, and reach out and be like, man, this song helped me through a breakup, this song helped me through relationship problems with my family, etc. And it just makes you feel so humble, and you write something in a little room that it goes out to the world.”
Tenpenny is one of the few musicians who was born and raised in Nashville. His grandmother, Donna Hilley, spent 31 years at Sony/ATV Nashville, working her way from a receptionist to eventually becoming the company’s president and CEO. During the 90s and early 2000s, he was a frequent visitor to her workplace.
“The main thing I learned from her was how she treated people and how she respected people and how she ran a company with class; that was the most important lesson,” he said.
Anyone who has been around the music industry knows how stressful it can be. Tenpenny admitted that he has been struggling with acid reflux since college. He said heartburn runs in his family, and for him, stress makes it even worse.
Tenpenny said that for him, taking the over-the-counter heartburn pill daily was a gamechanger. Now he can “eat and drink the same foods as my friends.
During the evening he played many of his hits including his newest release, “We’ve Got History along with his megahit with Seaforth, ‘Anything She Says.’”
Between songs, he joked about the things that cause him stress and fans chimed in with their own responses. Tenpenny recently married Canadian singer/songwriter, Meghan Patrick, and while she is the “love of his life” he learned that planning a wedding is extremely stressful. He strongly recommended a wedding planner.
Before this latest single, his songs, “Truth About You” and “End of a Bar” (with Chris Young) recently had the shortest span between airplay #1s (3 weeks!) from the same artist in the modern chart era.
Not only that the song written and performed with newcomer Alana Springsteen, “Goodbye Looks Good On You,” is climbing the charts at Sirius XMs The Highway.
He concluded the evening playing his multi-platinum hit song “Drunk Me” which has had nearly half a billion streams to date.
Tenpenny’s fans spread the gamut from ages 16 to 60. His songs are meaningful and relatable to many people.
And while he personally is quite happy and enjoys a good, upbeat song, he confessed that “the heartbreak ones are the ones that they tend to lean in on.”
Tenpenny will be on tour this year with Jason Aldean. With enormous success also comes great stress. However, he can face whatever life throws his way because he has it under control.
You can follow Tenpenny on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and all streaming platforms.
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Bethany Bowman is a freelance entertainment writer. You can follow her blog, Instagram, and Twitter.
