Jason Aldean Has One Regret Following ‘Small Town’ Controversy

Country music star Jason Aldean has revealed the one regret he has following the controversy surrounding his song “Try That In A Small Town.”

The song drew little negative reaction when it was first released in May, but that changed when the music video dropped on July 14. The video, which depicts protesters confronting police officers, an American flag burning, and surveillance footage of robberies, resulted in a debate about the song’s lyrics and imagery.

Critics claimed the song promotes gun violence, and it was also suggested it has “racist undertones,” with the music video having been filmed in front of a courthouse where a 1927 lynching of a Black teenager took place. Supporters believed the song champions the values of small towns during uncertain times.

Accusations of the video being racist led to Country Music Television (CMT) pulling it from rotation, which caused backlash from conservatives—including former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—who said Aldean was a victim of “cancel culture.”

The song shot to the number one spot on the U.S. iTunes chart as well as to the top of YouTube’s trending music videos category, possibly due in part to the overwhelming attention it received.

Aldean appeared on CBS News on Wednesday and expressed his only regret about the situation. The singer, who is a resident of the county where the video was filmed, said he didn’t know a lynching had taken place at the courthouse.

“I would do it over again, every time…minus the setting, knowing what I know now, obviously, you know, knowing that that was gonna be a thing, you know, maybe you look at doing it somewhere else,” Aldean said.

“But I also don’t go back a hundred years and check on the history of a place before we go shoot it either,” he said. “It’s also the place that I go get my car tags every year. It’s my county that I live in.”

Newsweek reached out to Aldean’s talent agent via email on Wednesday for comment.

Still, he said he doesn’t feel bad about what transpired as he knows his intentions behind the location, the video, and the song. His team pointed out that other productions have filmed outside the courthouse without issue, CBS News noted.

Aldean said it would be difficult to find a small-town courthouse in the South “that hasn’t had some sort of racial issue over the years at some point.”

He added: “There was people of all color doing stuff in the video. That’s what I don’t understand,” he said. “There was white people in there. There was Black people. I mean, this video did not shine light on one specific group and say, ‘That’s the problem.’ And anybody that saw that in the video, then you weren’t looking hard enough in the video, is all I can tell you.”