The patriotic, anti-terrorist song written in a few hours by Billy Dean and Larry Gatlin just over a month ago in their dressing room before a performance - and captured on a cell phone video with an acoustic version uploaded to their Facebook pages - has now reached more than 16 million people on Facebook and YouTube.
The unexpected, mind-boggling success of "American With A Remington" landed the duo on national television. In the wake of the song's sensational response, Dean and Gatlin recorded a more professional, downloadable version with part of the proceeds going to military organizations.
Now, Dean, whose No. 1 hits include "Somewhere In My Broken Heart, "You Don't Count the Cost " and "It's What I Do," and Gatlin, whose chart-toppers with the Gatlin Brothers include "All The Gold In California," "Broken Lady" and "I Wish You Were Someone I Love," have news about the runaway hit's continuing evolution. The news involves other country stars and a full-blown album version of the song in early 2015.
Dean granted HNGN an exclusive interview to discuss how the beheading of innocent people in America and overseas was a catalyst for writing "American With A Remington," plus he candidly explains what has been the song's impact - positive and negative - on everyday Americans and Dean himself. And the acclaimed singer-songwriter also provides details as to what's ahead for the viral smash song, along with what his hopes and fears are for America's future.
Although Dean and Gatlin wrote the song on Oct. 1 in their Branson, Mo., dressing room, Dean reveals the title of the song actually got its start months earlier during a phone conversation with his 21-year-old son, Eli.
"I did an event with Remington and got to know a couple of the guys with the company. I mentioned to them that my son might be looking for an internship," recalls Dean, adding, "Eli is a business and finance major at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Well, they called him about doing an internship.
"Before he did the internship, he calls me up and tells me he's researching the company. He says, "Dad, Remington is the oldest manufacturer of anything - not just guns - in North America. So, I said, 'Wow, that means there's nothing more American than a Remington.' As soon as I said those words, my songwriting brain kicked in and I thought, 'Man, those two words really go together.' So, I put 'American' and 'Remington' in the back of my mind."
Over the next few weeks, as the 24/7 television news networks flooded into Dean's daily life reporting the horrific acts committed by ISIS in Iraq, he acknowledges that he began to develop specific thoughts about Americans defending themselves.
"I got to thinking about all the things we Americans have been able to accomplishment by our ingenuity and our creativity. I thought about how, when terrorists leave Americans alone, when we're not under attack, we use our creativity and ingenuity to do productive things. We make great businesses. Great art. Great architecture. Great music. But when we come under attack and when people are threatening our sons and our daughters, that ingenuity and that creativity turns dark and deadly very quickly.
"I got to thinking about that turn of events one night when I was performing in Branson, because three hours from Branson was a beheading. In Oklahoma, just three hours from the doorstep of the theater, a guy from a mosque cut off a woman's head.
"Larry and I share a dressing room in Branson. Some people in the government and on the news were trying to say that the beheading in Oklahoma wasn't domestic terrorism, but, in my mind, terrorism is here - right here in America - just three hours away.
"My next thought was, 'You sumbitches, when you come over here, everybody I know in Missouri is packin.' With that many guns, you're gonna have some trouble if you come here.' That made me think that there are a lot of Americans right now that would dig their guns out and stand at attention, shoulder to shoulder, to protect their families and their homes. And I'm one of those guys."
"The TV was on in the dressing room and there were these news reports about ISIS in Iraq and how the people there cannot negotiate with ISIS and other terrorists. To them, it's either convert to our beliefs or die. Larry and I are hearing that 'convert or die' language. So, we start getting mad. And the madder we get, the louder our discussion gets about what is going on. We're really hot under the collar!"
How mad were they?
Picture Peter Finch's Howard Beale character in the 1976 movie "Network." Angered by what he sees going on around him in an ever-increasingly chaotic world, Beale delivers the iconic line, "Get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it, 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.'"
Check out Finch's powerful "Network" scene - which is still relevant to today's world - here.
That night in Dean and Gatlin's Missouri dressing room - with the television delivering chaotic news about terrorists here in America and overseas - a similar "mad as hell" feeling propelled the two stars to write "American With A Remington."
"We had already started working on the song a little bit," explains Dean, "but the beheading in Oklahoma and the news about the terrorists in Iraq, lit a fire under us. We pulled out our guitars and we wrote the song. We scribbled a first rough draft on paper."
What Dean and Gatlin did next became the spark that caused an internet firestorm.
"We put up a cell phone on a little bed of towels in the dressing room and we shot a video of us singing the song. Heck, in the video you can see Larry reading the just-scribbled words off the paper. He has to hold up the paper to see the lyrics. Well, we uploaded the video to our Facebook pages."
View their acoustic performance of "American With A Remington" on YouTube here.
"The next morning," continues Dean, "Larry sent me a text: 'Have you seen your Facebook? Mine is blowing up.' In 24 hours, our little song had reached more than a million people because of Facebook. Four million viewed it in less than three weeks. There are some 170,000 hits on YouTube. My Facebook views went up 74,000 percent! And the reach of the video on my Facebook and Larry's Facebook is now beyond 16 million, according to Facebook analytics. That's just crazy!"
The virtually instantaneous viral phenomenon caught the attention of FOX News.
"Larry and I go to FOX News in New York and appear on the 'Fox & Friends' show. We sing the song on the show and, man, after that, I have to tell you, I started getting nervous. I thought we're in New York City and we were just on national TV sending the terrorists a message. And I got to thinking that it doesn't matter who you are - a soldier or average citizen - our lives are being threatened by these guys.
"While we were in New York, people kept asking us about downloading the song. So, Larry and I thought that there was no better place to record the song than at 9/11's Ground Zero right here in New York City.
"We were tired. Hoarse. Exhausted by the pace this song put us on. Neither one of us had expected anything like what happened after we uploaded the video to Facebook. Before that video, both of our schedules were already in place to the end of the year. The impact of the video threw a monkey wrench into everything. Even though Larry and I were worn out, we recorded a new version of 'American With A Remington' and put it on iTunes.
"Then Larry and I decided that it wouldn't be right not to give back some of the money we get from the download. We know we're capitalists and we're in the music business to make money. There's no question about it. But we also knew we had to give something back. So we're donating our publishing royalty proceeds from the downloads to the Remington Charity Fund, which gives to military organizations."
Dean admits that not everyone likes "American With A Remington." Some even tagged the two songwriters with the "Obama haters" label.
"For every thousand people who support the song, there have been about twenty that called us Obama haters and stuff," relates Dean. "That erroneous label made me start thinking about my own family. My dad was a World War II veteran, a paratrooper, and he lost two brothers in that war. My dad's mom wasn't pure-blooded Native American, but she was a good portion Native American Indian. It was a good enough portion that she was not treated very well by some people because of her heritage. I didn't know her, she died way before I was born, but she somehow still believed in what America stood for and she still managed to raise patriot children. And she lost two patriot sons in WWII.
"You know, you might get as mad as you can be about where our country is right now, but if you lose hope in what we ultimately stand for, then you've lost what it means to be an American. We're not haters. I'm from the South and I'm an artist. And one thing an artist has to do is purge yourself of hate, because hate is the direct enemy of creativity. You can't hate anything.
"I wanted Obama to succeed, because I grew up in the racial tensions of the '60s and '70s and I thought, for one brief term, here's a shot for all blacks and whites to be united. I didn't like all that racial tension growing up.
"I was a supporter of Obama in the beginning. Even though I'm a registered Republican, I'm an American first, so I vote what I think is best for my country."
Dean says that when people who don't like the song confront him, he's okay with that. In fact, he embraces the moment.
"When the few people who have said negative things to me about the song, I don't get mad about it. The comments actually make me smile because it's their opinion and to them it's a great opinion. They don't understand me, but that's okay. It's freedom of speech. I accept it. I want to hear from all sides. But our speech doesn't need to be violent or hurtful."
Dean confesses that the reaction to the song by one particular group caught him off guard. The group? Women.
"I can't believe how many women are into this song. That's been shocking to me. Right after we put it on Facebook, I put the son in my Branson show for a couple of nights. But the band hadn't really worked it up, so the next night I just didn't do it. Well, I had five women come up to me after the show asking why I didn't do the 'American With A Remington' song. And it's been that way ever since."
"I believe one outcome of the song is that a lot of women are going to protect themselves by buying Remingtons. And that's a good thing."
Dean says the reaction of people to the song, both the good and bad comments, have had a dramatic impact on him.
"The reaction to the song has really made me think deeply about my values and think about my patriotism. You know, there is definitely one thing that's different between us and the terrorists. Even though our country was built on Christian principles, those principles embody the freedom of religion for everyone and anyone. We don't have that 'convert or die' approach. That's not our language. You can believe what you want and you're welcome here. Come on in. Bring your creativity to America and help us grow a nation. We're a nation of immigrants.
"I believe in the American people, not Washington. I believe in the people who show up at our shows and the people I meet every week. I physically shake hands with thousands of Americans a week. And I know what's in their hearts. I am sick and tired of Washington trying to intervene with people's vision of American. A bunch of career politicians and opportunists trying to tell us what our dreams are. So (laughing) that's who I'm going after next."
Dean wrapped up the HNGN interview with a heart-felt explanation of what freedom has done for him and what he wants to see for America's future, plus one final bit of news about the song's album version.
"Here's what freedom has done for me," notes the singer. "I have the freedom to chase the American dream. The freedom to make money, although my growth as a person has taken me beyond money. I was an extremely poor kid growing up, who had nothing but a roof over my head. A disabled veteran as a dad. My mom basically supported us. So I couldn't wait to spend whatever money I had on things. I got a chance to experience going from rags to riches and then I realized how empty the riches are. I was very short-sighted back then. I just knew I didn't want to be hungry anymore and I knew I didn't want to be poor anymore. Now I know that money buys you stuff, but it doesn't buy you the things that really matter."
Dean pauses.
"What I want for America is to see all Americans united. I'm tired of us being divided by party lines. None of us want to make the hard decisions. We don't want to kill anybody. We don't want to fight. Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone. But I'm afraid the terrorists are not going to do that.
"So, what I'd like to see is my fellow Americans, standing side by side. Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Palestinian, Israelite, everyone. If you're an American and you love this country and you're willing to fight and die for it, stand with us. That's what I want to see. If we do that, we'll defeat them. If we don't - if we start pussy-footing around with politics and trying to be popular - we're going to get our asses kicked. We'll lose everything if we don't. There is nothing stronger than America when we're all together."
Dean says this belief was underscored by a recent phone call he received from fellow country star Chad Brock.
"Chad called me the other day and said, 'Billy, do you know that there is over 90 million Americans who have guns.' 90 million! The bad guys had better take note of that.
"You know, in one sense we're just like them in that we're willing to die for this country - for what we have in this country - because we know if we don't, we're the last chance for this world to have democracy. If we don't have that attitude, I hate to see what my grandkids will have to deal with in a troubled world."
And about the album version of "American With A Remington" that will be available early next year.
"I can't reveal now what country stars are involved. But I can say it's possible that a number of country music folks might want to lend their voices to this little message to ISIS."
