Matthew Ramsey And Old Dominion Find Harmony With Cigars
There’s a natural symmetry with cigars and music. Good smokes cultivate bonds among bandmates. They mellow the soul amid the chaotic, and sometimes grueling, performing life. They ground and focus the churning minds of songwriters. The relationship between cigars and music is clear, but few performers harness this reciprocal dynamic better than the country music band Old Dominion and its lead singer Matthew Ramsey.
Known for hit songs like "Break Up with Him," "Snapback" and "One Man Band," Old Dominion has been among the top groups in country music for the last decade, and they have a long list of bona fides to prove it. The band has won seven consecutive Country Music Awards (CMA) and eight consecutive Academy of Country Music (ACM) awards. In 2019, they were nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for their song "Some People Do.” The band’s cumulative on-demand streams are well into the billions, they’ve released numerous chart-topping singles, earned a dozen RIAA Platinum and Gold single certifications and have headlined several world tours, leading to Rolling Stone calling them “one of mainstream country music’s most popular live groups.” Plus, they’re polished songwriters, having written hits for big names like Keith Urban, Blake Shelton and Kenny Chesney, to name a few.
The band, formed in 2007, consists of Matthew Ramsey (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Trevor Rosen (rhythm guitar, keyboards), Whit Sellers (drums), Geoff Sprung (bass guitar) and Brad Tursi (lead guitar). They’ve released five full-length albums and three EPs, and their latest album debuts this week.
Behind the acclaim and glamor is a hectic lifestyle familiar to all career musicians. Recording albums, touring across the country (and the globe), attending a bevy of events and relentlessly writing new scores. In this context, finding a relaxing escape is not just encouraged, it’s necessary. For Ramsey, cigars have filled that void. But for this front man, his entree into the world of premium cigars was a slow burn.
“I got into cigars probably way too young,” says Ramsey. He started by simply following the ways of his folks, smoking machine-made Swisher Sweets in the early days of his manhood. For a while, cigars were a here-and-there thing for the singer. At first, he was more drawn to the aroma than he was to the act of smoking a cigar. Eventually, he tried handmade smokes, and he was quickly hooked. “It’s a little time away,” says Ramsey, who fell in love with “the kind of forced meditation” cigar smoking bestows upon him.
Ramsey has morphed into a frequent cigar smoker, usually opting for evening porch sessions when he’s not on the road. But, when he’s at his lake cabin, he says any time of the day qualifies as cigar time. Ramsey welcomes new cigar recommendations, and his palate has come a long way since his machine-made beginnings. He points to My Father The Judge and the Tennessee Waltz by Crowned Heads as some of his go-to smokes. He calls the Padrón Serie 1926 No. 6, our No. 4 Cigar of 2024, his favorite, but occasionally nostalgia gets the best of him. “My parents still smoke Swisher Sweats, so sometimes when they’re around I’ll smoke those,” says Ramsey with a laugh.
When he’s back on the road, his smoking habits understandably change, but so does the company around him. Cigars have become welcomed “post-show rewards” for the band amid nonstop touring. After a show, they usually gather around the tour bus, pull out lawn chairs and light up cigars. Ramsey says that Geoff Sprung (bass guitar) and Brad Tursi (lead guitar) frequently join in the cigar sessions, and that drummer Whit Sellers “has recently joined the ranks.” The band is keen on taking a good supply of smokes on the road, making sure their bus is armed with a stockpile. Even the venues they frequent have started to catch on. “We're often gifted cigars, people find out you like them,” says Ramsey.
The members of Old Dominion aren’t just prolific musicians, they have quite the songwriting pedigree. The group has delivered a long list of hits both for themselves and for other prominent artists. “We’re constantly writing, we’re already writing for the next album and this one is not even out yet,” says Ramsey. While creating in this medium, cigars are near and dear to the band. One of their songwriting buddies, Andrew Dorff, sadly passed away some years ago. He was an avid cigar smoker. “Any time we wrote with him, it was always just a combined cigar event,” says Ramsey. Now, the band likes to honor the cigar lover by lighting up when they gather to write. Their new album, Barbara, includes a song dedicated to their friend, titled “Miss You Man.”
Ramsey says this latest project is their deepest, most vulnerable album yet. “I don’t think it was an intentional choice, rather that's just who we are as men right now and who we are as a band,” he says. “Sometimes you reach a point as a songwriter where you realize telling your own story and getting as vulnerable as possible is really the best way to connect to your audience.”
Despite the more serious tone struck in their new album, the band stayed true to their good time attitude that has earned them many fans. Look no further than the album cover itself. It has a hot pink background, and is centered around an alluring, mature woman, with a keen sense of fashion, sitting under a hair dryer while smoking a cigarette. Ramsey unpacks the loaded cover art: “We love that she’s this character that’s kind of classy but also kind of trashy,” he says with a chuckle. “She drinks and smokes and probably goes to church and has some life experience and could teach you a lesson.”
Maybe that lesson lies within the 13-track album, which will be released this Friday, August 22. Old Dominion is currently in the middle of their “How Good Is That” world tour, with a few more stateside spots remaining before they make their way to Europe this fall.
You can read about Ramsey in the “My Favorite Cigar” section of the September/October issue of Cigar Aficionado, on newsstands September 23.
