Scott Stevens Interviews Diamond Rio's Marty Roe

Scott Stevens talks to Marty Roe, lead singer of Diamond Rio, about their upcoming concert at Dr Pepper Park, this Saturday July 19th, 2025.  He also discusses their success over the last 35 years and recent changes to the band including their first female member.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Scott Stevens and we're backstage right now talking
some country music and there is a big show, a
show I'm very excited about coming up at Doctor Pepper
Park this Saturday evening, July nineteenth. Diamond Rio is Coming.
Originated as the Tennessee River Boys in the eighties, the
band evolved into Diamond Rio in nineteen eighty nine, signing

(00:20):
a deal with Arista in ninety one, the same year
that Yours Truly got into country radio, and one of
the first songs I played on country radio as a
very green young DJ was Meet in the Middle. It
became the first country music group in history to reach
number one with a debut single, and at the time
I didn't know what a big deal that was, but

(00:42):
as I learned over the years, that was a very
big deal. They went on to have many huge hits,
including how Your Love Makes Me Feel One More Day,
which was a big crossover hit, Beautiful Mess, Unbelievable. I
believe in many more that I played every single one
of them as a brand new song, which makes me
very happy to say. Selling more than six point eight

(01:04):
million albums a billion global streams, Diamond Rio has charted
twenty top tens, fifteen top fives, and seven number ones,
and even better than that. They're known for playing every
note on every album, on every song throughout their career,
unwavering commitment to their craft, including instrumental tracks like Big
Appalachian Dream, Poultry Promenade, and their current single the brand

(01:29):
New The Kick. Members of the Grand Ole Opry, winners
of six Vocal Groups of the Year awards from CMA
and ACM, fourteen Grammy nominations, winning a Grammy for the
album The Reason. Also known for their charitable contributions, raising
more than a million for nonprofits, winners of the Many
Pearl Humanitarian Award. I'm very proud to introduce from the

(01:52):
group Diamond Rio, a familiar voice, the lead singer, mister
Marty Rowe. How you doing, Marty?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I'm doing great, Scott Man, I couldn't have said that better.
That was quite a mouthful if you say it all
at one time.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well you know it really is. And I'm known for
having a mouthful. I guess that's why your thirty five
years as performers have kind of marred my thirty five
years in radio, most of which has been country radio,
as well as running other formats. But man, it's been
a long time since that debut single thirty five years ago.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
It has and it's amazing that we see fifteen sixteen
year old people singing every word to that song and
actually other singles of our some that you didn't even
mention that we're big hits, and they know our whole catalog,
which is thanks to the Internet. But yeah, we're still

(02:44):
out doing it. Because of that, we have lots of
young people that are excited about nineties country in general
and on our music specifically.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, no doubt about that. I mean that song Meet
in the Middle, You've been playing it all those years.
And one of the things I was going to ask,
does it ever feel old, not as exciting to get
up in front of a crowd and play a song
that you have been playing at performances a countless number
of times for the last thirty five years.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
No, it does not. It's unbelievable. No pun intended that
we I mean, we worked our butts off early on,
all starved for many years, I call it starving whatever,
but we struggled to get attention in Nashville and then
to have the success and sit here and have the

(03:35):
hindsight to know what it took to get those things
to happen, and then to see never ends that people
are excited about our music. They sing along with us
word for word, and to be able to be a
part of that is very gratifying, to say the least.
And it is different every show and every audience. I

(03:57):
always use this analogy is like a new person and
they have a little bit of a personality of their own,
and it takes a while to get to know them
and break the ice, you know, And and I look
at that as a challenge and and uh, and be
honest with you, it's they make it fresh every time
for sure, and I you know they're there. I guess

(04:20):
that you might say it gets uh, it could get
monotonous or uh, musically speaking, but it's not about that.
When we're on stage. It's about the performance, and it's
about what's going on in the crowd. And and most
people don't understand that. You know, we're not like television.
We actually actually can see what they're doing too, and
that can be quite entertaining.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
I bet us, I bet it can. Yeah, absolutely well.
You know, the lineup of Diamond Rio has come through
a little bit of of change recently. A couple of
the core band members retired recently, and you've got some
new additions as well.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's true. H Brian, our drummer, retired and H twenty
two first to twenty two, I believe. And then Jane
lost his wife and Gene is a little older than
the rest of us, and when she passed, he decided
to retire the next year. And so we have Micusweinsberg,

(05:17):
who literally grew up learned to play drums to Diamond Rell.
We discovered him when he was about eight years old
and Brian nurtured him that relationship and he became Brian sub.
Brian had a few surgeries, a couple of tunnel stuff.
You know, drumming is a very physical job, and it

(05:39):
took its toll on Brian, and he's a little older
than me. Brian was fixing to be seventy this year,
so he decided that he'd had enough. And Michael was
the obvious choice, and he's so excited to be with
us and he fits in so well. And then Gene,
who sings all the high harmony and played the Manlin.

(06:00):
We had some guys who were subbing for him during
his wife's illness, and they just couldn't sing high enough
and we had to fight. We found a little girl.
She was twenty three when we took her on. She
just turned twenty six. Her name's Carson McKey, and she's
a champion competition fiddle player. But she's picked up the
man and she could play anything she puts her hands on,

(06:23):
and she sings great. She can hit all those high
parts and uh, and what a bundle of energy on stage.
She really has brought a breath of fresh air to
what we do. And it kind of kicks us old
guys in the butt. You know.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
I kind of got to pick it up, no doubt
about it. And you know it's interesting because Diamond Rio
can no longer call themselves a boy band.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
No, we have our female. We have one one girl,
and uh, as far as I'm concerned, one is enough. Yeah,
we all have run around in the bus with our
underwear on anymore. You know, it's just a real plummer.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
I was gonna say, it changes the dressing room situation
quite a bit, I'm sure, no doubt.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Got to clean up your language whatever. I mean, it's
just awful.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Oh my goodness, Well you've played countless venues over the years.
I mentioned to you before we started recording this interview
that I had the honor of introducing you at a
couple of those concerts in the country Calhoun, Georgia, when
I was working down on South one oh seven in Rome, Georgia,
and then got to go to June Jam and got
a little bit of stage time and interviewed you guys

(07:39):
for the video show I was doing at the time.
But countless venues over the years, and the ones that
I've experienced have all been outdoors. So what makes performing
in places like Doctor Pepper Park and Rowanoak and other
beautiful outdoor venues special for you in the band?

Speaker 2 (07:56):
It is beautiful, those are I look forward to it.
I'm not sure sure if we played that venue before us.
It seems like we have, but I may be mistaken,
but we have. We've played a lot of outdoor shows.
That's what happens in the summer, and it is uh.
If we play it in the evening, it's great. If
you're in the middle of the day, it can get
pretty hot and sweaty, and that's not great for instruments

(08:18):
staying in tune. But we when we've done We've dealt
with it so long that's not an issue. But you know, man,
we played at the foot of Mount Shasta, you know,
with Mount Shasta in the backdrop, I mean in the
you know, in Zion National Park, and there's just so
many beautiful backgrounds and that part, that lush green area. Actually,

(08:41):
I hear Ronoke's been getting a lot of rain. I
hope we don't do that on the show. But anyway,
it's just I love it. I love being outside anyway.
I'm an outdoors kind of guy, hunt, fish, golf, whatever.
I don't spend much time indoors in summer. And uh so,
I I love it and we we I mean, it's

(09:03):
just a part of what we do, always ask been
and it's a great way for families. You don't have
to worry about the kids behaving whatever. They get to
run around whatever and make it's just a different atmosphere
and it's a it's a fun atmosphere, a lot more relaxed,
and we certainly enjoy doing those kind of kind of venues.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, no doubt about it. And you're going to have
another mountain behind you at Doctor Pepper Park. It's Mill
Mountain and that's where the Mill Mountain Star is uh
don't know that you guys won't be able to see it,
but those of us out in the crowd, we'll be
able to see the beautiful Mill Mountain Star off to
our right as we look at the stage, and uh,
you know, weatherwise, you're right, we have been getting a

(09:44):
lot of rain. But uh, you know, I'm I'm looking
at the weather now and it does look like we'll
be able to get this show in the evening hour.
Should be Okay, I'm not a meteorologist, let me just
say that, but uh, we're we're hopeful regardless. Well, finally, Marty,
you know, you guys have such a rich catalog of music,
not only the hits, but also some songs on the

(10:07):
albums that weren't necessarily released to radio that have special meeting.
How do you decide what to include in your your
set list? Because you can't play every song you've ever recorded,
because that's there's not that you'd be playing till two
in the morning, So you know, what, what how do
you choose your set list to perform for each show?

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Well, as a fan, I have always it's always kind
of put me off. I go see some of my
favorite artists you know, for me from the seventies story
even the sixties used to but they've all passed on.
But and I would they would play, want to play
their new stuff sometimes and neglect basically why I came.

(10:47):
You know, what I grew up or what was a
fan of and I didn't care for that. And we
don't do that. We intend to please and try to
get as many of our hits we've we've had so
many that we can't get them all into one show.
What a good problem to have, but and probably not
one that we initially expected, but yes, we do. We

(11:07):
do some outside things. We have a song that was
an album cut on our Greatest Hits Volume two and
then it ended up on our Christian album. The reason
it's on our live CD because we do it every
night and it's a song about God and country. It's
called in God We Still Trust and we if we

(11:28):
don't do it, it's actually one of our more requested tunes.
And if we don't do it, man, do we hear
about it? That's in there? And then you know, over
the years we've had we have a favorite cut of
ours and of our fans called Kentucky Mine. We did
that for many years in our show. It was never
intended to be a single, none of those, neither one

(11:48):
of those. They just were they rounded out an album.
They showed case what we're all about on our musicianship.
The subject matters. Sometimes we dictate as in God, we
still trust what it has to say about our country,
and and and pride in our country, to be quite honest,

(12:08):
and pride in our our men and women of service.
And how they they're the ones that grabbed a hold
of that song around the world, all the army bases,
you know, how people put together their own video for
things and stuff that was happening with that song several
years ago. And and we did some research and found
out that was a lot of our Armed service folks,
which kind of made sense. They defend freedom, and this

(12:31):
song is about freedom, freedom of speech, and uh, you know,
freedom of religion and all that kind of thing, things
that are important to Diamond Rio and I think important
to most Americans and uh and definitely important to country
music fan base. And that's what we're about. We tried,
we've never tried to be anything but who we are,

(12:52):
and sometimes that doesn't that's not everybody's cup. Of tea.
And I can't please everybody all the time, but I
can please you know, some of the people all the time.
And that's kind of what we do.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
That is pardon I said, that is awesome.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, that's what That's what we try to do. And
and we have some new stuff we're working on. You know,
we don't do a lot of new material except when
we have something to say or whatever. Like when we
had these two new members, we wanted to showcase them
and they are instrumentalists. We wrote an instrumental for them,
all of us together, of them included, and it's called
The Kick, and we did a video for it. And

(13:30):
actually Micah, our drummer, who is also a videographer, very
that's what he was doing for a living for the
most part. He was doing session work as a drummer
and music videos and things. And he shot the video,
produced it and was in it and uh and that
was quite the operation. And then we have a duet

(13:52):
that we're about done with. That's an introduction to to
Carson and I have a duet that Jimmy and I
wrote ten years ago about my daughter leaving home going
to school in Australia. All the way on the Other
side of the World and uh, and that's the name
of the song, the Other Side of the World, And
it's a it was a personal thing, but you know what,
it's actually a really good song. And we wouldn't put

(14:15):
We don't put things out unless we're excited about it,
and usually that's served us well. So be looking for
that stuff on our social media and all that. We
have about three other things that we're going to try
to get finished before and then just and to have
almost like a mini album to release introducing these new kids.
Like I said, they have created new fire in us

(14:37):
and uh, and I believe in next year you're going
to start seeing a lot of that. And so we're exiting.
I mean, we're still excited about what we do. We
still tour. I do, my goodness, eighty plus eights a
year and I don't know how long we'll be able
to do that, but right now we're we're still rocking,
and it's because we we do enjoy what we do.

(14:58):
And I think that across when you see us live,
and I hope that's what you see when we are
there in Roanoke.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Well that is awesome. We're looking forward to it. And
we're gonna play the kick, so everybody gets a chance
to hear that. And also, if you're listening to this
interview recorded the article you went to to find this,
we've got a link to the video for the kick
right there at the bottom their YouTube video where you
can watch it and enjoy it. I've watched it myself,
and Marty I'm I'm honored to have some stage time

(15:26):
before you guys go on on Saturday, and hope to
get to spend a little time with you as well
before the show.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
All right, Scott, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
All right, you take care all.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Right, Scott, stay away from the liquor bottle.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
I will thank you. Good advice, good advice, all right,
see you by B.