Tag: Montgomery Gentry

Some who survived Las Vegas were there Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks. “As far as country music goes, it’s sort of no-man’s-land to really go out and make a political statement,” said Andy Albert, a songwriter based in Nashville who writes mainly for country performers. Over the last couple of years, the genre has shifted again to a gentler, less brute kind of male star: the gentleman. “It’s just sort of in the water, it’s just understood that none of these artists are trying to use this as a soapbox,” Mr. Albert said of the songs he writes for other musicians. And I think it becomes more universal when you’re able to do that.” With mass shootings regularly blanketing the news, gun control has remained one of the most intensely partisan issues in the country. Among Democrats, the opposite was true, with 83 percent thinking the group promoted policies that were “bad” for the United States. Country stars have tended to limit their statements after shootings to condolences for the victims, avoiding any gun debate. The musician Kane Brown is releasing an album called “Experiment” on Friday that includes the song “American Bad Dream.” Mr. Brown was at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas last year and performed the night of the shooting. “Before, you never saw on the news there was a shooting today,” he said. Awards, addressed the Las Vegas shooting during last year’s show, which included the faces of the victims in the “in memoriam” segment.