Zebco Brands marketing leader John Kushnerick leaned on 20-years of employment perspective with the iconic fishing brand to reinforce the goodness of the day by asking, “At what other job can you get a plate of fresh fried fish and listen to one of Nashville’s best bands too for lunch?”
Kushnerick gets it. Few companies rally for a day of fellowship, fried fish and teamwork like The Zebco Brands.
It all started a year prior when a Nashville record label executive sent Kushnerick and Zebco PR guy Alan McGuckin an email about recording artist Shane Owens launching a song called “Where I’m Comin' From” that featured the word Zebco in the lyrics.
Zebco formed a relationship with the southern Alabama native, and over the months that followed, he would play the new artist game of following late night concerts in small venues with acoustic shows at sunrise on morning radio shows. Only with a cool twist, he’d surprise disc-jockeys with a leave-behind gift – a Zebco rod and reel combo.
When a busy concert tour took him to Oklahoma on the eve of Veterans Day, Owens graciously offered to play a free concert for all the Zebco employees at the company’s long established headquarters in Tulsa.
Of course, the Zebco people jumped at the opportunity to make him and his band mates feel welcome, including building them a makeshift stage.
Owens rolled up with the A-team on the tour bus, too. Performing alongside him were some of Nashville’s most talented musicians, including several who play regularly with Toby Keith. Together they filled a warehouse typically used to store and ship products from Zebco, Quantum, Badlands and Fin-Nor with sounds that made 100 employees grin.
Owens has been a lifetime angler who proudly tells the story of his grandfather’s Zebco fishing rod handle being worn from years of use. Certainly, a healthy dose of genetic persistence has served him well during the tumultuous path that building a career in the entertainment business has proven to be.
After two previous stints in Nashville that didn’t meet expectations, he’s now caught his third wind with the support of country icons Randy Travis and John Anderson. Humble and hard-working, Shane Owens is who he is, staying true to the kind of sounds we heard from Brooks & Dunn, Travis of course, and even some of Garth’s slower-tempo hits. “Rolling Stone” just named him one of “10 new country artist you need to know.” He will release a new album on December 9th, and preorders are available on his website at www.ShaneOwensCountry.com.
In fact, while Zebco employees munched on hush puppies, Owens covered “I Told You So” from Travis as well as “Neon Moon” from Brooks & Dunn, but only after leading off the set with his own hit “Where I’m Comin' From”, complete with the one line from a stanza full of lyrics that made the whole day possible: “If you know exactly how it feels to catch a flathead on a Zebco reel.”
