Photo: www.jeffography.comLast night Zac Brown band took home the Grammy for Best New Artist. In this My Page piece the group wrote for the December/January issue of Relix, the group outlines its mission to give fans a better concert experience

Well, hey! How y’all doin’? Zac Brown Band here – very happy to be here. In case you haven’t noticed, the concert industry is a little backward and screwy. And we want do something about it. So we are taking it back old-school, grassroots-style to make sure that we get to keep doing exactly what we are doing now for a lifetime.

We left home in June 2008 for a nine-week run to promote a single for country radio. During that time, we learned a lot by performing in just about every type of venue imaginable: juke-joints, honkytonks, restaurants, night clubs, dance halls, theaters and amphitheaters. We started kicking around ideas about how to make our shows better and more enjoyable for the folks that were coming out to support us. Through all of the different sets of circumstances, whenever possible, we started making time to meet everyone there – talking about music, sharing stories about missing loved ones, taking photos, signing just about anything and everything and, of course, throwing back many cold beers and Jager shots. It didn’t take long before we realized that we actually got along with these folks and liked hanging out with them.

The point is that every hardworking American who busts his/her ass every day to make a living is the same person who, by spending their hard-earned cash on a concert ticket, enables us to have our extraordinary jobs. It’s a simple fact that we remind ourselves of every show.

Understanding this is what has motivated us, as we headline bigger shows on our own, to try and create a more meaningful concert experience. Make it an event, every night. So how do we leave fans with something more than just a faded ticket stub and a faint recollection of having once seen a show? We aren’t necessarily sure, but we came up with a few ideas that seem to be working for us (and our fans).

The pre-show: Before each show we block off a couple hours to hang with members of our fanclub, contest winners and other various folks for our very Southern-inspired Eat-n-Greet. Rather than herd people through a tiny, fluorescent-lit room for a photo, we sit and talk to folks over some good, old-fashioned home-style cooking and get ‘em boozed with cold beer.

The show: We’ve all been to shows where you have to suffer through the 20 to 40-minute respite that occurs while the opening acts are having their gear hurriedly shuffled offstage, while the headliner’s gear is being meticulously put into place. Let’s face it, unless you are an excessive drinker and find yourself with the need to stand in line at either the bathroom or the beer tent, the half-hour break in the action can seem like an eternity. So, for our current “Breaking Southern Ground” tour, we made the show an integrated, three-hour performance with our cool support acts that could go anywhere from one talented dude onstage with an acoustic guitar to a 13-person jam with no end in sight.

The post-show: After our three-hour musical adventure, we leave the stage and take the time to meet with the fans again and sign autographs. Some folks might call it ludicrous and excessive, but we call it giving back to those who give us so much: Southern hospitality, a plate of food and good conversation for our fanclub members (we give out keepsakes and beer huggers for all who attend the show).

Is it the ultimate fan experience? We’re not sure. That’s a question for the fans. Our aim in being friendly and inviting is to invoke a sense of family. We think that, for a change, fans just might just be getting their hard-earned money’s worth.

Playing upwards of 200 shows a year, Zac Brown Band’s first album The Foundation on Atlantic Records was certified platinum this past August. It debuted at #17 on the Billboard Top 200, while the single, “Chicken Fried,” peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Chart.