Most country singers avoid any topic that could bring them backlash. Brad Paisley has never been one of those country singers. The musician talks about how his collaboration with the Ukrainian president led to an actual face-to-face meeting in Kyiv.
“All of the things I’ve done in the last few months have been — well, every single one of them is kind of an impossible thing to have happened,” Paisley said in a phone interview. “And they’re all happening.”
“At the end of it, he said, ‘I hope you come over and see our people.’ And that’s what really stuck with me. … He just went on and on and on about how he feels about them, and obviously he feels every bit the pride he should in these folks,” Paisley said. He’s now an ambassador for United24, Zelensky’s crowdfunding effort to rebuild Ukrainian homes, and is friends with the senators in the delegation; when they offered him a spot on the trip, he immediately agreed.
“I’m not just singing about driving down a country road or something. I’m asking a question in the song about our similarities,” Paisley said. “And I got the answer firsthand, which was really inspiring to see that we’re as similar as I thought we were.” “I saw kids in their raincoats with their bookbags getting off the bus, going home from school that afternoon. The Nike store was open,” Paisley said. “They just want freedom and the ability to control their own fate.”Performing his music in St. Michael’s Square was a surreal and “insane” experience, Paisley said, as he told the reporters gathered that he was struck by the resilience of life and how the city was trying to thrive during the conflict.
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