Larry Fleet Says Modern Country Music Has Glorified Drinking & Partying: “Steered Away From Things That Actually Mean Something”

Has the subject matter of country music steered off course?

Larry Fleet joined the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast to talk new music, faith, sobriety, and to dive into some downright wild stories. He shared how he connects with fans around the world, and why he still writes drinking songs despite stepping away from alcohol. Larry also opened up about the role God plays in his music… and tells us about the UFO he saw, his ghost encounter, and why he believes in Bigfoot (it gets really interesting at the end of the episode).

One thing that fans always want to know more about from Larry Fleet is his sobriety journey. He told us that there wasn’t a singular moment that made him stop drinking. Rather, his circumstances slowly made it hard for him to fit it into his schedule, and he came to realize that he didn’t really need to drink alcohol anymore:

“My path on sobriety was different. I didn’t go to rehab. Mine was I’d get a little rowdy at times, a little too rowdy. Mine was a little different, because it was a challenge to myself. It started back before I had buses. I had a Winnebago, and me and the band would be piled up in that thing. I was like, ‘I don’t need to be drinking, and then try to drive everyone in the band wherever we had to get.'”

The “Where I Find God” singer went to to elaborate that he and his band would leave the venue immediately after a gig, he’d drive until he couldn’t any longer, pull over and sleep for a couple of hours, and then make coffee to keep on trucking. While they traveled to and from shows, Larry Fleet never had the time to partake in the alcohol.

It was around that same time that Larry and his wife’s kids were being born, so that also played a role into his eventual, intentional choice of sobriety:

“That honestly kind of helped me quit. Then I was like, ‘Well I haven’t really drank much in a while.’ I told my wife, ‘I’m gonna see if I can go an entire year without drinking.'”

@whiskeyriff Check out the full Whiskey Riff Raff podcast out NOW. @Larry Fleet #whiskeyriff #whiskeyriffraff #sobriety ♬ Things I Take For Granted – Larry Fleet

In other words, Larry Fleet wasn’t necessarily trying to go sober… it just kind of happened naturally.

He says that he made it through his first year and felt great, so he wanted to see if we he could do another trip around the sun. Sure enough, he’s now four years into his sobriety journey, and he’s not looking back. Though he’s penned a couple of drinking songs here and there, and even wrote an anti-drinking song called “Daddy Don’t Drink” to speak those people out there who might be struggling, he’s perfectly fine with leaving that part of his life behind.

That being said, he doesn’t mind seeing his fans letting loose with a drink when he’s up on stage. Larry is still going to sing his fans songs that allow them to kick back and have a good time, but he’s also trying to do his part to move the genre into a more family-friendly place. In his eyes, modern country music as a whole has somewhat glorified drinking and partying, and Fleet believes artists could easily get back to singing about things that really matter:

“We still write drinking songs because I drank for a lot of years. It was a time of my life, and I can write about it. But now I think I write about drinking as more of a nostalgia thing. With country music, the drinking and the partying and hell raising has been glorified. Where you don’t glorify God or glorify these other things. So I try to write to write the opposite of that.

I think that radio and country music and everything else has really glorified the partying and the drinking. That’s not really country music. What country music was back in the day was very much gospel influence and it was on family and love on all these different things. We’ve kind of steered away from things that actually mean something. It’s more about who wants to get drunk and who can get drunker.”

Yep… that’s about all that you hear on the radio nowadays.

Larry Fleet makes a convincing argument there, and if you want to hear more from the country singer on the matter, make sure to download the podcast on Apple Podcasts by searching “Whiskey Riff Raff” or by clicking here.

We’re also available on Spotify and wherever else you can listen to podcasts.

Cheers, y’all.

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