Jason Aldean defends ‘Try That in a Small Town,’ but ‘minus the setting’

More than three months after its debut, Jason Aldean is still striking a defiant tone when it comes his controversial music video, “Try That in a Small Town,” saying to critics who called it racist: “I almost kind of feel like that’s on you.”

“There was people of all color doing stuff in the video. That’s what I don’t understand,” the 46-year-old country music singer said in an interview with “CBS Mornings” released Wednesday.

“There was white people in there. There was Black people. This video did not shine light on one specific group and say, ‘That’s the problem.’ And anybody that saw that in the video, then you weren’t looking hard enough at the video, that’s all I can tell you,” Aldean told CBS News’s Jan Crawford.

The video for “Try That in a Small Town” ignited a storm of controversy when it was released in July.

The video was filmed in front of a courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., where an 18-year-old Black man was famously lynched in 1927. Images projected on the courthouse in the music video also show protests and demonstrations that took place during 2020’s Black Lives Matter movement, along with apparent violent crimes and burning American flags.

The song also took flak for its combative lyrics. “Stomp on the flag and light it up.
Yeah, ya think you’re tough,” Aldean sings. “Well, try that in a small town — see how far ya make it down the road.”

Country Music Television pulled the song’s video from its airwaves amid a wave of criticism.

“I didn’t expect it to get the kind of heat that it got. And I think that was probably more because of the video than the actual song,” Aldean said in his first network news interview on the backlash.

Responding to criticism about the video’s courthouse setting, he said, “I’m not going to go back 100 years and check on the history of this building, because honestly if you’re in the South, you can probably go to any small town courthouse [and] you’re probably going to be hard-pressed to find one that hasn’t had some sort of racial issue over the years. That’s a fact.”

“It’s also the place that I go get my car tags every year. It’s my county that I live in,” he added.

Asked if, after learning the history of the music video’s backdrop, he would still choose it as the location for “Try That in a Small Town,” Aldean replied, “Knowing what I know now, probably not.”

Many prominent Republicans had defended Aldean’s video amid the criticism when it was released. Former President Trump called the performer a “fantastic guy,” while 2024 GOP presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy played the song at campaign events.

“The whole idea behind the video was to show the lawlessness, and the disrespect for cops, and just trashing cities and burning — I’m just not cool with that,” said Aldean, who was born in Georgia.

“I feel like the narrative really got switched over and became more of a racial type thing,” the musician added. “It’s like, if that’s what you got out of the song and the video I almost kind of feel like that’s on you, because that wasn’t our intention,” Aldean said.

Despite the controversy, Aldean said, “I would do it over again, every time” but “minus the setting.”

“Knowing what I know now, obviously knowing that was going to be a thing, maybe you look at doing it somewhere else,” he said.

“I know what the intentions were behind the location, the video, the song, all of it and I stand by all that.”