Josh Mirenda Was Looking to Write a Song for Jason Aldean — Instead, He Wrote One for Himself [Exclusive Premiere]
Born and raised in Hendersonville, Tenn., multi-Platinum hit songwriter Josh Mirenda grew up around country music, and six months after his college graduation, he went and signed his first publishing deal. And though he has gone on to write songs for big-name artists including Jason Aldean and Dierks Bentley, there has always been a spark within him to take his turn in the spotlight.
Mirenda is finally taking his shot, with his name slapped on his new pop-country love song, "Til the Neon's Gone." The acoustic video is exclusively premiering Friday, March 25, on Taste of Country.
But to completely understand the story of this song, you must go back a few years.
“It was either late 2018 or early 2019,” Mirenda recalls. “I had an idea called ‘Neon Gone.’ I had a bunch of songs with (Jason) Aldean and stuff and he's a good buddy of mine. So, I knew I wanted to do this rocking song for Jason (Aldean) called 'Neon Gone,' which I still might do. (Laughs.) I don’t know.”
“Neon Gone” never took flight, but it did sort of transform into a love song, called "Til the Neon's Gone." But it still wasn’t one that Mirenda thought would end up in his lap.
“I think (Blake) Shelton might have had it for awhile, and Cody Johnson had it for awhile,” Mirenda says of this song — a co-write with Jon Nite and Ashley Gorley. "And then I signed a record deal about the time that Cody (Johnson) took it off hold and it was still up in the air.”
During the pandemic shutdown, Mirenda signed with Average Joe’s Entertainment, and the song that he couldn’t get out of his head crept into his heart.
"It was then that I told them how much I really connected with this song," he says. "I had my wife in mind when I wrote it. I don't know any other song that's more me right now than this. It's honestly probably my favorite song up to this point in my career that I've wrote or been a part of."
The acoustic video for “Til the Neon's Gone” was filmed at Joslin and Sons Signs in Nashville, a legendary company owned by Mirenda's wife and her family. The employees seemed a tad surprised that a music video was being filmed there.
“A lot of the employees at the shop have an idea of what I do, but I don't know if a lot of them have seen like a music video thing happen," Mirenda says with a laugh. "I don't think my wife told the employees, aside from the glass blower, that we would be in there shooting a music video on a Wednesday.”
Nevertheless, the neon signs in the background certainly fit with the song.
“All of the signs you see in the video are signs that they made or that they're currently repairing,” he says. “If you look closely in the video, that's actually their glassblower making a sign while we were shooting the acoustic video."
He didn't seem to be bothered by it at all.
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