Jason Aldean defends 'Try That in a Small Town' song: 'What I was seeing was wrong'

Jason Aldean says the reaction to his hit song "Try That in a Small Town" and the accompanying music video was made into "something that it's not."

During a Wednesday episode of "Coop's Rockin' Country Saturday Night," a country music podcast hosted by radio host Sean "Coop" Tabler, the 46-year-old talked about the controversy surrounding the song and video, which was released over the summer.

"The biggest issue I think people had when we released the song was that it mentioned 'having a gun that my grandfather gave me,'" Aldean said. "I mentioned a gun, that's a no-no right now, and I just remember thinking, 'Man, you guys haven't even seen the video yet.'"

The music video, released in July, shows clips from recent protests, including clips of protestors yelling at police and the igniting of American flags. The video was quickly pulled from CMT.

"If you've got common sense, you can look at the video and see, I'm not saying anything that's not true," Aldean said. "In the video, I'm showing you what happened — I didn't do it, I didn't create it — it just happened, and I saw it, and I'm not cool with it."

Aldean's video received fervent criticism online this summer, with some claiming the visual is a "dog whistle" and others labeling it "pro-lynching."

"There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it — and there isn't a single video clip that isn't real news footage — and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music, this one goes too far," Aldean wrote in a tweet posted in July.

The "If I Didn't Love You" singer told Tabler on Wednesday that he needed to be "the guy" to say something about the violent protests.

"I don't care which side of the political fence you want to stand on, but to me, what I was seeing was wrong, and nobody would say anything, especially in the music industry or entertainment industry," Aldean explained. "It's very uncommon for someone to say something for fear of losing a job or losing some money… losing friends or whatever. It just kind of reaches a breaking point to where you're like, 'Somebody needs to say something, and if nobody's gonna do it, then I'll be the guy.'"

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In response to the massive wave of criticism against the music video for "Try That In A Small Town," which topped the Billboard Hot 100, The Washington Post reported that a version featuring Black Lives Matter protest footage was removed less than two weeks after its release.

A news clip from Atlanta's Fox 5 showing the city's 2020 and 2021 Black Lives Matter protest confrontations is no longer visible in the video. Aldean's representatives said a spoken-word clip of a wheelchair-bound elderly man appealing to rural values and another man in a baseball cap and sunglasses staring into the sun are not present in the video's re-uploaded version.

About the removal of the clips, Aldean's label, Broken Bow Records, added that "third party copyright clearance issues" are to blame for the removal of the footage − not online criticism.

Contributing: Maria Sherman, The Associated Press, and Marcus K. Dowling, Nashville Tennessean

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jason Aldean responds to 'Try That in a Small Town' criticism