Ira Dean has covered a lot of roads in life throughout his career, but at 55 years old, it’s like he’s just getting started. The former Trick Pony bassist has released his debut album, appropriately titled ‘I Got Roads,’ giving his fans a front row seat to his life — the good, the bad, the ugly, the broken and the blessed.
“I’m the oldest new face in town,” Ira tells Country Beat with laughter. “If I had waited 10 more years, my album cover would have been me using a walker.”
The project, produced by Noah Gordon, details Ira’s highest time and lowest lows, including finding the love of his life, the loss of his parents, kicking addiction, finding sobriety and everything in between.
“My goal was for when people listen to the album, start to finish, they’ll know who I am,” Ira says. “They’ll know all my struggles and know all my happiness. I wanted to do an album where every song is a chapter in my life. When I was a kid reading album covers, you listen to the album start to finish, and you kind of knew who the artist was personally by what they cut. So I wanted to do that.”
To make the album even more meaningful to Ira, he called on his closest friends in Nashville to not only collaborate on the songwriting process, but also the vocal collaborations throughout the record.
“When Trick Pony disbanded, my phone didn’t ring as much,” Ira explains. “This is a what have you done lately town. But, I had the same guys stick with me that said I don’t care; I like writing with you. They stuck with me through all the hard times. Why branch out? When you find good ones, you hang onto them. I looked at them and I said, let’s write!”
David Lee Murphy, Jeffrey Steele, Chris Wallin, Aaron Barker, Dave Turnbull, Phil O’Donnell and Gary Allan all were there for Ira in the creative process of I Got Roads, helping the artist truly create a project he is proud to hang his hat on.
Fans have already been enjoying the release of the all-star band jam, “Tele-Man,” featuring Ronnie Dunn sharing vocal duties, and Vince Gill, John Osborne (Brothers Osborn) and Brent Mason lending their famous musicianship. The song is one of 2 songs on the project not written by Ira, but then minute he heard it, his vision was crystal clear as to what he wanted it to be. “In country music, we do vocal collaborations, but we don’t do songs where everybody plays on it, everybody sings on it — like the Traveling Wilburys,” explains Ira. “I’ve been trying to do it my whole career.”
When the collaboration fell into place so seamlessly, it sparked another vision for the rest of the album. “I said you know, this was pretty easy; let me try it again,” laughs Ira. “I wanted to do a full album with guys who have influenced me throughout my career. Not only are the songs going to be chapters of my life, but I want everybody involved with this thing to be folks who have changed my musical compass, one way or the other.”
Other artists who collaborated on the final recordings include legendary rock icon Ted Nugent, Gretchen Wilson, Shelly Fairchild, Uncle Kracker and Steve Ferrone (drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers).
“I just started calling anybody who’s influenced me and made me who I am today,” notes Ira. “Everybody who I’ve always wanted to record with and who I’ve always held high up on a respect level is on this album.”
Ira wrote the title track, “I Got Roads,” with songwriter Jeffrey Steele and hitmaker Gary Allan, who he has become great friends with over the years. “Gary and I have both lived life. We’ve walked some fires together, you know? And that’s where the title track came from. The song talks about the roads in life. The bumpy roads, all the wrong turns I took that led me through a lot of stuff.
“Noah gave me just enough rope to hang myself,” Ira continues with a grin. “He gave me complete freedom to express what I wanted to express, which has been a long time since I’ve had that.”
Part of Ira’s story he was happy to share included the chapter of his life where he met his wife Jennifer and him accomplishing sobriety after years of struggle.
“I’ve got such a supportive wife who’s never met ‘that guy.’ Knock on wood and God willing she never will meet ‘that guy.’ I’m hoping he is dead and buried,” Ira says. “Jennifer is great. She is awesome. She gets it. She hears stories from my past and says is that really true?! I’ll say yeah, unfortunately it really is, hun. Deep down that guy still lives in there somewhere, but that’s who you married. So I keep it shut.
“I’m trying to be a different kind of example at this point in my life, because I was definitely a poor example the first half,” he adds. “I was self destructing. I got dark. Maybe there’s somebody out there who’s hit a wall like I did, and I can show them that you can get through it. If I can beat my demons, then everybody can. It’s a constant battle.”
As far as the roads ahead, Ira is leaving it up to the man upstairs to determine if there’s more music to come. But in his heart, the creative juices will never stop flowing.
“I’m always writing, and I’m always creating. As long as I’m breathing, I’m going to write songs about it. People will cut them or they won’t. I really believe God put me on this planet to do music, because I can’t do anything else except music. I proved I was a horrible maintenance man by getting electrocuted before,” Ira says with laughter. “I went into this one thinking this might be my last hurrah, so do the album that I always wanted to do that they can play when I’m gone, and they can say he did this body of work. And that’s what I did. This is the first album that I’ve ever done where I don’t hit fast forward. I’m happy with it sonically, lyrically — everything. Maybe it’s a redemption thing where I’m coming full circle. But good lord willing, if He wants me to do another one, I’ll do another one. If He doesn’t, this is a hell of a one to hang my hat on.”
