George Ducas: Country Music Trendsetter

AM:  George, you are a wonderful and unique artist who has been around a while but you dropped out of the business for a few years.  What caused you to make that decision?

GD:  A number of things contribute to the ups and downs of your career in this business.  I was on Capitol Records and had four or five top forty hits and one bonafide hit with ‘Lipstick Promises.’  It was a great ride.  We had a hit video and toured the world.  Three record label presidents later, the game changed.

AM:  Oh I get it now.  You didn’t feel the same kind of support from the new executives.

GD:   Then you’re left with picking up the pieces and figuring out what to do with the rest of your career.  A lot of people don’t know this but I actually got started as a songwriter before I got signed to Capitol Records.

AM:  What was your first hit as writer?

GD:  I had written a big hit titled ‘Just Call Me Lonesome’ that I co-wrote with Radney Foster.  I had just stumbled into town and we got hooked up.  He took me under his wing.  I refer to him as my uncle or a big brother that I never had in the music business.  That song was his first single as a solo artist.  It really catapulted me to my first publishing deal and that led to my first record deal. 

AM:  So even though you weren’t recording you were still writing hit songs.

GD:  After the Capitol Records deal ended it was a natural segue to move back into songwriting until I figured things out.  I had a good run that lasted about ten years.  My songs were cut by the Dixie Chicks, Garth Brooks and George Jones.

AM:  How did it feel to have a song recorded by George Jones?

GD:  It means so much because he is the kind of legend that will probably never be again.  That era of music had a longer shelf life.  The world has sped up.  If you can build a career real quick now, that’s great, but it probably won’t be there for very long.

AM:  Are you pleased when other singers record your songs?

GD:  It’s always a huge compliment when other people record my songs.  It’s been a career builder for me.  I work all the songs I’ve written into my live show.  Often people don’t know that I wrote the song. 

AM:  What do you sing at your live shows?

GD:  It’s a mishmash of songs I recorded on Capitol to my new songs from ‘4340.’

AM:  That is such a good album!

GD:  Thank you.

AM:  Did you write all those songs specifically for that album?

GD:  Yes, it was originally a 6 song EP that I released five years ago.  So we added a few more songs that I’d written over the past five years and made a full album.  The record is two years old now. 

AM:  Are you writing songs for your next album?

GD:  I’ve got another seven or eight songs ready for the next album. 

AM:  Are you planning that release yet?

GD:  Yeah, I’ve already recorded quite a few.  Some of the songs were recorded a year ago so I’ll look back at those songs now and some may not apply anymore. 

AM:  Will you ever record the songs that were hits for other artists?

GD:  A lot of people have asked that.  I could do something acoustic with them.

AM:  Do you plan to continue writing new songs for a while?

GD:  I don’t know how much longer I’ll stay plugged into the Nashville songwriting machine.  I’m not concerned one way or the other.  I’m happy with what it’s provided me.  Unfortunately for those of us who love getting on stage, the money is really in the songwriting.

AM:  So it serves you to keep writing those hits!

GD:  That’s how you stay in the business to do what you love to do.  Unless you’re out there on the road selling a bunch of t-shirts every night with major label support, it’s pretty tough.  We rely on our songwriter income.  With that said, it’s been really good to me. I’ve had way more than my share of good fortune.  I anticipate at some point on moving back to Texas.   

AM:  Do you live in Nashville now?

GD:  Yes but I tour Texas more than any other state.  I have a place in Nashville because that’s where the songwriting community is.  I’ll stay at least a couple more years. 

AM:  Is that where your children are?

GD:  Yes.

AM:  How old are they now?

GD:  I’ve got a fourteen year old and an eleven year old.

AM:  You’re with them all the time then?

GD:  All the time!  If I’m writing a song that day, I’ll be finished by 2:00 and the highlight of my day is picking up my kids and being a Dad.  I love taking my son to football practice and taking my daughter to wherever she’s got to go.  It’s great to come home and grill steaks with them.

AM:  You’re really a family guy.

GD:  I am!  I really love spending time with my kids.  It may not sound sexy, or maybe it does.  It’s funny to me because if I had never had kids I wouldn’t miss it.  I was never the kind of guy who said, “I can’t wait to have kids.”  Now that they’re here and so incredible, I can’t imagine not having them.  We laugh a lot and learn life lessons together.  I have to get them off to college and then I’ll be able to do whatever I want. 

AM:  It seems to me your priorities are pretty much in order.

GD:  They feel like they are pretty well aligned.  I always feel like I’m teetering.  I wonder, how do  I keep this little train rolling.  At the beginning of my career it was all rolling for me automatically.  The Nashville machine had kicked in and it kept me amazed that my music could take me to so many places.

AM:  I’m sure it kept you very busy.

 GD:  I was always on tour and playing giant stadiums with Alan Jackson in front of 50,000 people.  You can think it’s all you but it’s not, it’s a marketing machine.  I understand that now, but at the time I was barely twenty years old.  You don’t know any better. 

AM:  You seem to blend the traditional country sound with the more contemporary music.

GD:  I try hard not to stay in the same box.  I’m still really proud of the neo-traditional country sound records I made but I was really lifting the sound from the old records I played.  Now I’m more my own thing.  I have maintained some of those elements because they are so ingrained in me.