PJ North may be a new face on the Country music scene, but he already knows the two things that make a great country song — football and falling in love.
North dropped his latest single “Saturdays Are For The Boys” on Friday (September 11), and the budding country star blends those two things perfectly; taking the title for the perfect fall tune that will make you want to grab your collegiate sweater and cheer on your favorite team.
“This song is about falling in love at a college football game, as weird as that is to say,” North shares with CS Country. “It’s a feeling I think that everybody felt at a game; not just about the girl but about the aura of college football and that feeling of being at a big stadium. I’m from Columbus, Ohio originally so going to games at Ohio State, and me being a Michigan fan, you feel the different energy. This is a song to capture that feeling of meeting a girl, but at the same time, that rush that you get from a college football game-or a football game in general. The camaraderie and the experience is a different 3 1/2 hours of your life when you’re at one of those games.”
“Saturdays Are For The Boys” is the follow-up to his last release “Turn It Up Some” in July after his EP You Wouldn’t Get It in April. The project features successful singles “Afraid of the Dark” and party song “Lites On,” with three brand new songs co-written by some of North’s Nashville cohorts, including Ryan Robinette, Davis Branch (Ray Fulcher Band), and Frank Legeay (Adam Doleac Band).
Celeb Secrets Country sits down (virtually) with North to talk about the song, his favorite tailgate memories and more. Keep scrolling to read the full Q&A, and let us know what you think of “Saturdays Are For The Boys” by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sending us a tweet at @CS_Country.
You can also connect with PJ by giving him a follow on Instagram at @thepjnorth.
Celeb Secrets Country: Tell us about your new single “Saturdays Are For The Boys.”
PJ North: “This song is about falling in love at a college football game, as weird as that is to say. It’s a feeling I think that everybody felt at a game; not just about the girl but about the aura of college football and that feeling of being at a big stadium. I’m from Columbus, Ohio originally so going to games at Ohio State, and me being a Michigan fan, you feel the different energy. This is a song to capture that feeling of meeting a girl, but at the same time, that rush that you get from a college football game-or a football game in general. The camaraderie and the experience is a different 3 1/2 hours of your life when you’re at one of those games.”
CSC: What was it like in the writing room for “Saturdays Are For The Boys?” Are there any behind the scenes secrets you can share with us?
PJ: “I wrote this with Tyler Anderson and Frank Legeay. I was at a write with Tyler-we were doing a one off for a different song-and at the end of the write he was like, ‘man I’ve got this cool little thing, let me play it for you’, and he played me just the first line and it was ‘a couple beers, some buddies, and me’ and I was like, ‘that’s the song we should have wrote’. So I got myself, him, and Frank in a room and we came up with that song. I had this idea of, ‘man this is a song about Saturdays are for the boys but let’s flip it and Saturdays aren’t only for the boys but also this girl’. One of the things I do in writer’s rooms is I have to have this visual concept of what the song is, so I come up with a music video in my head during a write; which is sometimes distracting but sometimes it’s really helpful. With this one I had this really cool idea that we went with and that’s kind of where we ended on. I connected with it being a Michigan fan, but I think other people connect with it because of what it’s about.”
CSC: Do you have any plans to release a music video to go along with the song?
PJ: “We’ll see how it goes. I built this really cool roll out for the song; I did these player cards for my friends, similar to what they do on ESPN where they talk about the player, and I thought that was really cool. There’s a picture of all of us that did the photoshoot for the album cover and I put a bunch of different things about the person like what you’d see on a play board. I tried to take all aspects of the creativity process for the song. A video would be really cool. We’d love to do a tailgate at UT and really get people involved.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CE7D6a6nBoI/
CSC: What was it like shooting the single cover?
PJ: “I’ve used Alex Mertz for all of my photos for the past couple of years and he’s become a really good friend of mine; he just does a great job. I had the idea to do it in Neyland at UT, or in Knoxville. Unfortunately with Co-Vid we just couldn’t find anybody available to help us out, so we worked with what we had. We went down to Vanderbilt and made it look like we had a tailgate; we set up a flip cup table, we set up beer pong, we were throwing the football around and playing some songs. We just kind of captured everything that we could in the time that we had before it started pouring rain. It was cool, it was very different.”
CSC: What is one of your favorite tailgating memories?
PJ: “I would say my favorite tailgating memory was the first time I got to go to the Big Ten; it was Michigan vs. Ohio State at Michigan. I got a chance to take it all in; in was a noon game so we got up there early and I got a chance to hang out with kids that went to Michigan. That was one, but I would also say the Notre Dame vs. Michigan night game. We got to take in the whole day and see all of the campus and hang out with everybody; and really, an all day tailgate is a lot. I’ll never forget that and the game came down to the last second. For me, tailgating is something I really enjoy because everyone’s there to have a good time; everyone’s there for one common thing. We’re there to support what we love.”
CSC: How is this new single different from your summertime single, “Turn It Up Some?”
PJ: “I don’t know if it’s different, necessarily, but it’s definitely on brand for me. Ballads aren’t my speciality, so I try to turn ballads into a different version of that. [‘Saturdays Are For The Boys’] is still a love song in itself, but it’s not Romeo and Juliet, but it’s about meeting a girl and knowing that in that moment, she’s the one. Similar to ‘Turn It Up Some’ it’s in that pop, punk, country lane. I don’t know if it’s majorly different, but it’s a love song more than ‘Turn It Up Some’.”
CSC: Lastly, what do you need for your perfect tailgate?
PJ: “I’d say a Yeti, big screen TVs with all of the college football we can handle, bratwurst (that’s my go to choice of grilling food), pasta salad, and Cheetos. I’m not a big corn-hole guy, I’m not good enough; I like to play a little bit, but I don’t need it if it’s not there.”
With reporting by Kassidy Stewart. For more Country news, visit CelebSecretsCountry.com.
