With big name supporters including Blake Shelton and Thomas Rhett, NRA Country is being used to entice younger members to the NRA by using country credibility. But with some artists distancing themselves, can it survive?

'Welcome to NRA Country': how the gun lobby tried to tap into country music

“I love the NRA,” sang Preston Brust on stage at a recent concert in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Brust, who comprises one half of the country duo LoCash, was performing the group’s hit single, I Love This Life, a typical feel-good country ode to small towns, trucks and girls.



The setting was the 2016 Great American Outdoor Show, the NRA-backed hunting and fishing trade-show, held for a week each February, that draws over 200,000 yearly visitors and claims to be the biggest consumer outdoor show in the world.

Saturday evening’s concert was presented by NRA Country, the lifestyle brand offshoot of the NRA that fosters partnerships between the National Rifle Association and the country music industry.

Since its founding in 2010, NRA Country has tried, with varying degrees of success, to develop close ties to Nashville’s country music industry, partnering with several of the genre’s biggest stars and some of its most prominent institutions.

Those ties were on display at the Great American Outdoor Show concert, where bright yellow banners that read “This is NRA Country”, complete with the organization’s logo of two guns joining together to form bull horns, adorned all corners of the arena. Between acts, video screens above the stage played looped videos of NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre saying things such as: “We need to take our country back and fight like hell to save America.”

The first words uttered on stage were from the evening’s MCs, DJs Nancy and Newman, from the local country station 94.9, who greeted the crowd by saying: “Welcome to NRA Country” and imploring the crowd to sign up for an NRA membership.

Throughout the concert, the three musical acts performing namedropped the NRA a total of 20 times. During their 45-minute set, LoCash alone mentioned the organization on 13 occasions, or roughly once every three minutes.

With I Love This Life, LoCash were also the only group that managed to sneak in a lyric about the NRA into one of their songs. After Brust sang his line about the NRA, the group then handed out NRA Country T-shirts to the crowd and mentioned the organization a half-dozen more times before closing their set. “God bless the NRA,” they shouted, before disappearing offstage.

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sunny Sweeney performs at the 5th Annual NRA Country Jam in Nashville, Tennessee Photograph: Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

NRA Country was founded as a lifestyle brand that, in its own words, helps bring “country music artists together with NRA members in support of our Second Amendment freedoms and hunting heritage”.

The NRA views NRA Country as a vital marketing tool, presenting “a softer side” of the organization, as one NRA spokesperson put it in 2010. NRA Country presents a mainstream version of its otherwise hard-nosed image and uncompromising political stance through its association with country music, one of the largest and fastest growing musical genres in the United States, with an estimated 100 million adults who identify as fans, according to the Country Music Association.

Although country music has become increasingly popular in suburban and urban America over the past several decades, a large percentage of the genre’s core demographic is still a rural-leaning audience that is more likely to identify with the NRA than that of any other popular musical format.

NRA Country “hits at a real country consumer”, says Ken Levitan, president of Vector Management, whose clients include several NRA Country artists such as Hank Williams Jr, Trace Adkins and Aaron Lewis.

For most artists, NRA Country is seen as yet another corporate sponsorship opportunity, a way to reach potential new fans among the NRA’s many millions of members as it becomes increasingly harder to sell new records in the 21st century.

“It’s a really competitive business and NRA Country gives another voice to your song or your album,” says Levitan. “It’s all promotional. They’re giving full-page ads in Country Weekly and they’ll advertise your albums. All the labels are looking for any kind of help they can get.”

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The chairman of NRA Country is Chris Cox, who also serves as the head of the NRA’s direct lobbying arm, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action. NRA Country’s director is Vanessa Shahidi, who has served as an assistant to Wayne LaPierre.

“It’s no secret,” Shahidi told the Tennessean last year. “If you poll our members, they love country music.”

NRA Country is just one facet of the organization’s concerted effort in recent years to court Nashville’s prominent entertainment industry. The NRA held its annual conference there last spring. It was the second-most attended in the organization’s history, drawing nearly 80,000 members.

With NRA Country’s uncontroversial, values-based branding and immediate appeal to the country music audience at large, the NRA utilizes NRA Country primarily as a marketing and recruitment tool for new, younger demographics.

According to a recent study, the age gap among gun owners stands at a record high. Whereas in 1980, 23.5% of gun owners were under the age of 35 and 27.4% were over the age of 65, that split has grown dramatically. In 2014, just 14% of gun owners were under the age of 35, and 30.4% of gun owners were over the age of 65.

“Because they’ve saturated the old white male market, what has happened is that the NRA has made efforts to reach out to new groups, whether it’s millennials, women, or country music fans,” says Josh Sugarmann, the director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group that studies the NRA.

Shahidi has not hesitated to emphasize NRA Country’s explicit goal of courting the youth demographic in recent years. “The sold-out crowd of 30-and-unders shows the strength of the NRA Country brand,” Shahidi said after the NRA Country’s 2014 concert at the Great American Outdoor Show.

Last year, Shahidi once again highlighted NRA Country’s unique potential to convert young country fans into future card-carrying NRA members.

“These are guys who are out in front of big crowds of young folks every day singing our praises, getting our messaging out there,” she said on Cam & Company, a now-defunct NRA talk radio show. “We’re just so thankful to have this brand and this partnership.”

NRA Country did not respond to repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Wayne LaPierre speaks at the NRA Country ACM Celebrity Shoot. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images for ACM

Country music fans are a more natural fit for the NRA than their related recent efforts to court untraditional gun-owning demographics. But Sugarmann hints at another reason behind the organization’s recent efforts.

“The NRA has a real inferiority complex regarding celebrities,” he says. “There’s a resentment that folks on the gun control side of things have tons of celebrity spokespersons and the support of Hollywood.” NRA Country, he said, “has the added goal of trying to create some celebrities who can be attached to the NRA”.

A quick glance at NRA Country’s website lists over 30 performers, including some of country’s biggest contemporary acts such as Florida Georgia Line and Thomas Rhett.

According to a trademark application filed in spring 2010, NRA Country was founded as an organization that would provide “information about country and rural lifestyles, such as patriotism and freedom” as well as information “relating to legal affairs” and “information about firearm safety”.

But a quick glance through NRA Country’s website reveals hardly a single mention of guns, firearms or second amendment rights. The result is an oft-confusing attempt at reaching an imagined country demographic that Sugarmann describes as “almost a caricature of the country world”.

One recent post in JJ’s Country Column, NRA Country’s blog, is titled Country Dogs. The post, “written” by a dog named Max, is accompanied by a number of photos of dogs that have been stamped with the NRA Country logo.

“We country dogs come in all shades and snout sizes,” the post reads. “We don’t lounge in parlors, ride in Mercedes, receive floofy haircuts, and we’ll only crash a tea party if the back door is accidentally left open.”

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Luke Bryan at the NRA Country/ACM Celebrity Shoot. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

In its first few years, NRA Country immediately enjoyed high-profile industry partnerships with institutions like the Academy of Country Music, which co-hosted the organization’s annual NRA Country Celebrity Shoot, and with high-rising country superstars such as Luke Bryan, who partnered with NRA Country for his 2011 tour, and Blake Shelton, who hosted the Celebrity Shoots in 2011 and 2012.

“It’s great for NRA Country to be back and continue our partnerships with the ACM and Blake [Shelton] for these righteous causes,” said LaPierre in March 2012, before the 2nd annual Celebrity Shoot.

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By mid-2012, NRA Country had quickly made its presence felt in Nashville, boasting an impressive list of more than 20 partnered artists on its website. Jake Owen is one of several high-profile singers who is no longer listed on NRA Country’s list of partnered artists.

Asked to clarify his present association with the organization, a representative for Owen stated that “Jake actually never had a partnership with the NRA”, explaining that the singer had merely once attended an NRA Country-sponsored celebrity skeet shoot event.

Representatives for the NRA and NRA Country did not respond when asked to comment on Owen’s past affiliation with NRA Country.

On the morning of 12 December 2012, a gunman murdered 20 children in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

That day, the NRA quietly canceled an event it had scheduled for that afternoon: an NRA Country Twitter Q&A session with country-rapper Colt Ford. “Apologies for the inconvenience,” Ford tweeted, “but the Tweet & Greet with @NRACountry will be rescheduled.”

The Colt Ford cancellation quickly prompted the largest bout of national publicity NRA Country had ever received, with outlets ranging from MSNBC to the Daily Beast to the New York Daily News all covering the story.

Since Newtown, fewer artists have been willing to publicly acknowledge their ties with the NRA.

In the months after Newtown, the NRA’s corporate sponsorships began to receive an unprecedented degree of scrutiny. One particularly controversial event held in the spring of 2013 was the NRA 500, an NRA-sponsored Nascar race held in Fort Worth, Texas that ended with a man shooting himself in the head.

With debate over gun control and second amendment rights brought to the nation’s forefront in the emotionally charged months after Newtown, NRA Country appeared to grow quiet. The Colt Ford Tweet & Greet was never rescheduled. The annual ACM Celebrity Shoot was not scheduled for the spring of 2013, and the event has not been held since.

NRA Country also completely redesigned its website in the spring of 2013. When the new site was unveiled, its two biggest stars – Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan – were no longer among its roster of artists.

Representatives for both Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton did not respond to repeated requests to clarify the status of Bryan’s and Shelton’s current relationships with NRA Country.

The Academy of Country Music (ACM) also declined to be interviewed for the story, with a spokesperson stating that the organization didn’t “have anything to add because we aren’t currently doing something with NRA Country”. Although the ACM has not held a single event in conjunction with NRA Country since Newtown, a spokesperson for the ACM denied that the two organizations had permanently cut ties, clarifying that “our events are constantly in flux”.



Another one of NRA Country’s highest-profile associations in Nashville has been its annual “Keggs & Eggs” event during CMA Fest, the annual festival hosted by the Country Music Association. When asked to comment on their present relationship with NRA Country, a representative for the CMA confirmed that the CMA had never partnered with the organization. Instead, NRA Country’s “Keggs & Eggs” party, like many other events during CMA Fest, is an unofficial event unaffiliated with the Country Music Association.

“It’s all about the times we live in,” says Angie Johnson, a country singer who has served in the air force and has partnered with NRA Country since the organization’s inception. “A few years ago, or a decade ago, it would have been easier for any artist to say, ‘Sure, I’ll partner with NRA Country,’” she says. “Today, it’s a little more difficult.”

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hank Williams Jr performs at the fifth annual NRA Country Jam. Photograph: Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

Many of NRA Country’s partnered artists, including the organization’s most prominent names, such as Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett, and Justin Moore, either declined or didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

But a number of the 30-plus musicians currently partnered with NRA Country have deeply personal reasons for their partnership, and several were more than willing to discuss their positive working relationship with the group.

Delaware-born country singer Chuck Wicks sees his partnership with NRA Country as a “natural fit”, tracing it back to his lifelong love of hunting and animal conservation. “You don’t want something that you have to work hard to sell that you believe in it,” says Wicks.

Just about every mainstream country artist is quick to point out their love of hunting, but Wicks is a devoted conservationist, someone who will start reciting white-tailed deer population growth statistics soon after the subject of hunting comes up.

“The NRA is the most solid foundation I’ve ever been a part of because you know that both feet are down. It’s very clear what the stance is and I think that’s needed,” he says.

As for Sunny Sweeney, the east Texas country singer and longtime card-carrying NRA member views her partnership with NRA Country in part as a bonding point with her husband, who is a police officer and former member of the armed forces. Sweeney, who describes herself as a “liberal conservative”, preaches an attitude of tolerance, open-mindedness and mutual self-respect when it comes to discussing controversial subjects like gun control.

“It’s a sticky subject because it’s what I believe in, but I’m not going to push my beliefs down anybody else’s throat, just like if somebody disagrees with me I’d expect them to be respectful and not push their belief down my throat,” says Sweeney, who says she has never received any negative feedback from being associated with the NRA.

Sweeney also points out that her shows with NRA Country have been some of the biggest of her career. “It’s a good partnership, no more random than partnering with, say, a fast-food chain,” she says. “And just like any partnership, there’s benefits for both sides, or they wouldn’t be doing it.”

For Drake White, an Alabama-born singer who is currently working on his debut solo LP, his partnership with NRA Country originates in his relationship with his grandfather, who taught him about hunting, conservation, and firearm safety when he was a boy. But unlike Sweeney and Wicks, who described their decision to partner with NRA Country as a “no-brainer”, White said choosing to partner with NRA Country was not an easy decision to make.

“The tough part is that when you’re an artist, you want the single mother from Chicago who is against guns to buy your music just like you want the guy from south Texas to buy your music,” says White, who ultimately felt it was best to represent his beliefs and partner with NRA Country.

“I was thinking: ‘Do I want to go and really scream this from the mountaintops or be more reserved about it?’ That was where the difficulty came in becoming an advocate.”

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Many feel that a large segment of Nashville remains afraid to speak out on gun control. One exception has been Tim McGraw, a gun owner who has expressed tacit support for moderate gun control in the past.

When McGraw played a benefit for Sandy Hook Promise, an organization that promotes gun safety and aims to prevent gun violence, in 2015, the singer received enough negative feedback from fans that he was compelled to issue a statement to the Washington Post shortly thereafter.

“I support gun ownership,” McGraw said. “I also believe that with gun ownership comes the responsibility of education and safety. I can’t imagine anyone who disagrees with that.”

Like McGraw, most every NRA Country artist interviewed for this story stressed the importance of safety, education, and modest regulation when discussing their views on guns and the second amendment. And despite their partnerships with NRA Country, most also differed with the NRA on at least one of its legislative stances.

Unlike the NRA-ILA, which “opposes expanding firearm background check systems”, both Chuck Wicks and Drake White agree with the more than 70% of card-carrying NRA households who support universal background checks. “It creates a strong wall of allowing mentally ill people or people with felonies to have access,” Wicks says on the issue.

Sunny Sweeney differs with the NRA in her opposition to the recent open carry laws in her home state of Texas. “It’s drawing added attention to something that is already scary,” she says.

Drake White says: “Carrying arms is a huge responsibility, so I do support tighter gun laws ... Evil people should have a hard time getting guns.”

“When artists sign up for NRA Country, they don’t realize that they’re tacitly endorsing everything that the gun control people are against, that the NRA is for, but especially that the gun extremists are for, because people don’t make those distinctions,” says Holly Gleason, an industry veteran who works as an artist development consultant and music critic in Nashville. “They identify based on their own truth and leaning.”

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Thus far, NRA Country has had a much easier time bringing country music to the NRA – promoting NRA Country-sponsored artists through its own promotional channels like the NRA magazine American Rifleman and trade shows like the Great American Outdoor Show – than vice-versa.

The country music industry has preferred, for its part, to keep largely quiet on the matter, downplaying its ties to the NRA, particularly post-Newtown.

“I don’t know of any organization so totally divorced from music itself,” says Bobby Braddock, a legendary Nashville songwriter who has worked with artists including Blake Shelton and George Jones.

Braddock sees NRA Country as an unwelcome merging of partisan politics with art and entertainment, though he is an outspoken liberal himself. “I hate to see an agenda tacked on to music,” he says.

“I resent the incursion of the gun lobby into this music,” said one country music executive in 2013. “And I think I’m not the only one.”

Still, industry executives who work closely with NRA Country think the organization will only become more popular in years to come.

“There’s a line to get to do it – you have to let them know months and months in advance,” says Levitan, discussing the process of becoming one of NRA Country’s “Artists of the Month”.

“NRA Country has been around for a while, so people don’t look at it as anything that’s unusual,” he adds. “Right now, I think people are looking at it as a given.”