Never could we have envisioned a day when Adam Wainwright would share the stage with the likes of Ludacris and T-Pain, but here we are.
“I was doing this baseball thing, but now I’m doing this other thing,” Wainwright says with a laugh. “My wife says I quit one job and got three jobs.”
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Not only will the former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher–turned–aspiring country music artist take the stage alongside Ludacris and T-Pain at the Confluence Music Festival as part of NASCAR Cup Series Weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway, but Wainwright also finds himself in the booth for FOX Sports and MLB Network as a color commentator for MLB broadcasts. And he’s a father of five.
“There is a lot of correlation between playing baseball and everything else I am doing,” Wainwright says. “I think the more you’re prepared, the less nervous you get.”
Certainly, Wainwright has nothing to be nervous about, as the Georgia native has come accustomed to the adoring crowds of the Midwest.
“It’s just a good-hearted part of the country,” explains Wainwright, who will take the Confluence Music Festival stage on June 2 alongside fellow featured headliners such as Riley Green, Big + Rich, and Brittney Spencer. “The morals and the manner that people live their lives is not that much different than what I grew up in the South. When you go through a restaurant in St. Louis, whoever’s walking in front of you is probably going to hold the door for you. Those are the kinds of things that are very special to me.”
Having released his debut album Hey Y’all last month, Wainwright finds himself putting the nerves behind him at the moment, as his collaborations with Grammy-winning producer and songwriter Gary Baker and songwriter Greg Barnhill have resulted in a quite impressive body of work straight out of the gate.
“I just fell in love with the writing process,” Wainwright says. “I’ve been writing poems and messing around with songs all the way back to high school, but I’ve just fallen in love with writing songs and writing music. It’s just so neat to me. It’s all about creating something new that comes from the heart.”
Perhaps the most soul-revealing song on the new record is “American Hearts,” which Wainwright wrote alongside Baker, Barnhill, and Jeff King.
“It kind of wrote itself,” Wainwright says. “If you watch the news, you might think there’s nothing but bad going on, but it’s just not true. The reason that we have so many people trying to get into this country is because I believe we have the best country in the whole world.”
Confluence Music Festival runs June 1 & 2 at World Wide Technology Raceway. For tickets and more information, visit confluencefestival.com.
