Any country music fan worth their weight in attitude knows the anthem song Hold My Beer (While I Kiss Your Girlfriend) and every music fan knows the entertainer that sings that song, Aaron Pritchett.
The Canadian singer songwriter is holding two, count 'em two, benefit concerts for the Blackburn Community Association next Wednesday and Thursday night at 7:30 p.m.
"Any kind of charity event where I can help out is great and the cool thing for me is this is an acoustic show - just me and my guitar and I get to be me - the idiot I can be," Pritchett laughed. "I am one of those guys that likes to be a goofball on and off stage and I get to show my personality this way and tell some of the stories for the songs that are on the record as well as play some of the new material that I've got and have been working on for the last six months that will go on the new record."
The reason for the two shows is that Pritchett is so popular in Prince George that the Wednesday night show is all but sold out, so due to popular demand, the Blackburn Community Centre's organizing committee asked for a second night and Pritchett agreed.
"I'm quite amazed to be honest that we're doing two shows, it's great," said Pritchett. "I consider myself, first and foremost, an entertainer, a lot of people think 'oh, I want to be a famous singer', or 'I want to be a famous songwriter' and I like doing those things but my real, true thing that I love doing the most is entertaining people."
Since he was a little boy he wanted to entertain.
"I was always the class clown, yeah I was that guy," Pritchett said. "I wanted to be an actor for a long time. When the singing thing came along, to me I loved the songs that I was singing but it was more than that, it was being able to entertain where you're in front of two people or 2,000 people it doesn't really matter. For me - I know it sounds corny and cliche - but I just wanted to make people smile and laugh and provide an escape for anything they might be going through that day or week or month or for life and I think that's working out. I love it when people are singing along to my songs and they're paying attention - they're focused."
In this day where no one is ever very far away from their phone and texting might be the preferred way to communicate, Pritchett said he has learned to incorporate that into his act.
"What I'll do is I'll grab the camera phone or whatever they have and we'll take pictures from the stage and make it entertaining that way," said Pritchett.
His break out hit Hold My Beer has such an attitude to go with it and Pritchett said he got the idea for the song when he was DJing at the Rooster Club in Maple Ridge.
"I saw the saying 'hold my beer while I kiss your girlfriend' on the back of this guy's T-shirt," said Pritchett. "I thought that was the funniest thing I ever read and I honestly didn't even think about it again until I was at a song-writing session and I wanted to write something fun and it popped into my head. Three hours later the song was written."
At first he wasn't sure if people would even get the song.
"Then I thought, it's tongue in cheek and any good Canadian guy is going to defend the honour of a Canadian lady no matter what," Pritchett said. "And that's the whole point. It's something I would do. It's something most guys I know would do. And now I hear this is sort of an anthem and I think it's great. That was the whole purpose of it. And again we're back to the entertainment factor."
Pritchett said after trying out a bit more mellow music in the past album, Thankful, for his new album he's going back to the music he loves.
"In the last year and a half I made a lot of personnel changes and I have decided to go back to the old Aaron Pritchett who you could party with in a bar and yet still hang out on a bus and get the serious side, too," he said. "Pinch is a new song and the only way to describe it is Arrowsmith meets ZZ Top meets - me! - country - and it's very cool. There are a few songs like that on this next album like Light It Up and the people in P.G. are going to dig that one. I have the serious songs as well. I have one called She's Goin' Somewhere and it's for the girls. The girls are going to love this song. Any girls that are sick and tired of their lives and are available to do it will listen to this song and say 'You know what? That's it. I'm done. I'm going somewhere other than here.' The new album is definitely still me with a cowboy hat but catchier."
The P.G. concert audience will here lots of Pritchett's old songs and some of his new ones, too.
"I'm probably only going to play four new songs," he said. "But by the time I'm done and they finally tell me to get off stage it'll be at least two hours."
These events have reserved seating. Tickets are on sale at the Blackburn Community Centre from noon to 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Adults $26, children 12 and under $16.
Doors open at 6:30, concert starts at 7:30 p.m. For more information about Pritchett visit www.aaron-pritchett.com and he's on Twitter and MySpace and he answers all his messages personally.
