Halloween is Friday, October 31st, and the spooky, eerie holiday has some of your favorite country stars getting into costume, while others are recalling their favorite Halloween candy or memories of Halloweens past.
PREP AUDIO:
“You know, when I was a kid, I loved the trick and the treat. I loved dressing up. I was always wanting to be Dracula. That was my favorite guy. But, of course, who doesn’t love going door-to-door and getting these buckets of candy? [laughs] So, love, love Halloween.”
“TJ: “I would say, Snickers, Baby Ruth, Kit Kat and Reese’s too.” JOHN: “I always hated those houses that would give you bad candy, though. You’re like, ‘C’mon. Step it up.’ Spend the extra dollar on a bag, you know?” TJ: “A house when we were growing up used to give out whole candy bars. It was the best. You were like, ‘That house – that’s the honey hole of candy.’” JOHN: “I love it, and I love like at the end, like three or four days after Halloween you would see what candy was left, and it was always like those crappy cheap candies, and they would just go stale.” [laughs]”
“With our dad every year, we would go looking for pumpkins, and we would all get our own pumpkin to carve, and he would buy the biggest pumpkin that they had. It was huge. I mean, it was way too big for any one person, but he would love carving. He’s kind of an artsy guy. He was a great drawer and stuff, and he would carve the most terrifying, vicious looking, scary pumpkin you’d ever seen in your life, and it would be massive. It would be like on a 50-pound pumpkin or something.”
“J: “Literally, you can dress up like a zombie and drag your foot behind you all day and make weird noises, and everyone finds that completely acceptable.” [laughs] JOHN: “One year I dressed up as a ‘90s redneck zombie with a mullet wig and an Alan Jackson denim coat. I never once broke character. That’s part of the thing — you can actually not break character and get away with it. And everywhere I went, even when I ordered a drink, I ordered it like a zombie that was falling apart. [laughs] It was so fun!”
“My favorite costume was easy, and I bet, from the time I was six to the time I was 13, of those seven years, I went as a football player because you’re coming from football practice to go out (laughs) and trick-or-treat. So, instead of like, you know, putting on some other costume. Just put your pads back on and go as a football player. So, most years I went as a football player. And I don’t dress much anymore, but my favorite costume I ever had was (son) Jack dressed up as Darth Vader and I was Luke Skywalker. And he just, I guess he was six and he was walking along telling everybody I’m his father. It was very funny. (laughs) It was very funny.” (laughs)
“Oh, when I was a kid, I was all into fireworks. Growing up in Arizona, we couldn’t get ’em, so we’d have ’em shipped in illegally. I still remember the name of the guy we’d call. His name was Joe, and he’d bring in, ship ’em in a package with no writing on ’em. We were all about M-80s in the mailboxes and bottle rocket wars. To me, as a kid, Halloween was fireworks, was blowing up stuff around home. [laughs]”
“My favorite Halloween costume really came, I remember when I got a little older my first year of college, there’s this thing they do every year in Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Halloween on Franklin Street. We drove down from Boone, North Carolina. I had a bunch of friends that went to University of North Carolina, and we didn’t have costumes and didn’t realize until we were on the way that we had to have costumes. So, we stopped at a costume place in Greensboro, North Carolina. It’s Halloween, so there’s a run on everything and couldn’t find anything. And we end up getting sent around, driving around town. We end up finding this hole in the wall place, but they had the full costume, Sesame Street outfits. The real deal. The real ones [with] feathers and fur. We were Elmo, Cookie Monster and I was Big Bird, and the Big Bird was the actual Big Bird. It’s about 7-foot-4, and yiou looked out of the body and then you had these straps that went on since the head was a lot higher. There’s a lot of beer involved in Franklin Street, so we get down there and as the night went on, my straps broke, so the head would pivot. And so, I would be walking one way and the head would be facing the other, and it just became this funny…I didn’t know the head was on backwards. I had no idea. I see out of the body, so I’m just kinda walking around and people were talking to my ass-end. [laughs] The whole time peiople’d come up and start talking and go, ‘Hey, turn around.’ And I’d turn around, and they’d go, ‘No turn around.’ It was a mess. That year, there was no other Big Bird on Franklin Street.”
“Man, I went through phases of costumes – the Superman costume, then it was a ninja, then I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle one year. I remember rockin’ the Superman.”
“Man! The candy corn is pretty good, and that’s seasonal, so it only kinda pops out during Halloween.”
“I can remember being really big into Power Rangers. I always liked the Red Ranger. I remember being Red Ranger one Halloween. I remember me and my br4other being big into the Ninja Turtles. I was Donatello one year, which I think was the purple turtle. I think, though, my favorite Halloween was I was in college and I went as Luigi from Mario and Luigi, and I actually grew a legit mustache and dyed it jet black and ran into an ex-girlfriend at the costume shop and completely forgot I had the mustache on. So, when Is saw her, she was like, ‘So, you’re going with a mustache nowadays, huh?’ [laughs] I remember being like, ‘I swear this is part of my Halloween costume.’ [laughs] When I dyed my mustache, my top lip was black for a week. Like I really did dye it jet black.”
“My favorite Halloween candy [is] probably Reese’s or M&M’s, although I love the variety of Starburst. It’s one that I feel like I only eat at Halloween, because I feel like at Halloween one of the popular ones is the two-piece Starburst things. So, probably Reese’s, M&Ms and throw in some Starbursts.”
“You know what I never got? The candy corns. I’ve never been a candy corn guy. I think they’re awful.”
“My favorite family costume was from a couple of years ago when I had my six-and-a-half-month-old beard going, and me and the whole family dressed up as Star Wars characters. So, I was a young Obi Wan Kenobi, Jennifer was Princess Leia, Colby and Marion were Storm Troopers, Hampton was Darth Vadar and Hawk was, I guess, pretty much still a baby, and he dressed up as Yoda. It was pretty classic.”
“My favorite Halloween candy…hmmmm…that’s a tricky one. I’m going to have to go with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Can’t beat ‘em.”
“You can find out a lot about your neighbors by what kind of candy they put out. So, well, like full bars of Snickers bars, that’s what, and Reese’s cups, [but] the old chocolate popcorn ball of stuff, that’s no good either, like Dots – you get Dots one time of year and they pull your teeth.”
“My tradition for Halloween is Caroline picks the outfit. I never know what I’m wearing. So that day, I’ll talk to the neighbors ‘cause I have a tractor back there and I’ll go get my tractor and get a big long trailer, and then I’ll run down to…a couple miles from the farm, we’ve got a big hay farmer that keeps hay and you run in there and pay him for his hay bales. And I’ll load the hay up and get the hayride ready and we’ll take all the kids behind the tractor and have a fun Halloween with all that.”
“Me and Caroline did one year where I dressed up as the old lady, and she dressed up as, she called herself a dirty old man. So, she went around acting like an old man saying snide comments to everybody. That was a fun one. The main thing is Caroline is a big, she loves Halloween and always has.”
“TAE: “Oooooh, Halloween [is] my favorite holiday. Anyone who knows me knows I love all things scary and gory, so especially on Halloween all the scary movies that come out in theaters, I am there every single time.” MADDIE: “And I never go with her because I hate scary things.” TAE: “You know what’s funny? As little girls, everyone wants to dress up as princesses, and I think I was a witch like six years in a row. I just wanted to be scary.” MADDIE: “Girl, I was like Jasmine and you know [other] princesses.”
“Halloween is my favorite season of all-time. I live in spooky season all year round. I’m like a scary movie fanatic. If you need a good horror movie recommendation, I’m your girl. So, I have a lot of fun with costumes and stuff. One year my husband and I were Dwight and Angela (from The Office) for Halloween, and then we just like have so much fun with our costumes. So, last year, actually for Halloween we were a little family of hedgehogs (laughs) ‘cause we put a little hedgehog costume on Leighton, at the time she loved hedgehogs, so Josh and I got hedgehog onesies. And this year, Josh and I are gonna be park rangers because Leighton is going to be a pink dinosaur. She’s going through a major dino phase; she calls ‘em dinos. And it’s gonna be adorable. And Maddie actually just told me her family’s costume theme. Forrest is going to be little E.T., and then Jonah’s gonna be Elliott and Maddie’s going to be Gertie. I cannot wait to see them in that costume.”
“Growing up, my parents were very, very conservative Christian, and so they viewed Halloween as a pagan holiday. BUT, I got to go trick-or-treating once in my life, and I dressed as a clown because my mom made me this clown suit and that was the best. We were in Moody, Texas. It was all three of my siblings and myself and we had so much candy that it lasted for months and months. My parents eventually had to throw it away because we had so much candy. And it was one of the most amazing, magical experiences I’ve ever had, because I never got to celebrate freaking Halloween. I tell you what, this son of mine is gonna definitely going to be celebrating trick-or-treating. Like I can’t wait to dress him up in all of the costumes.”
“What I can eat like 6,000 of are Tootsie Rolls. If I eat one Tootsie Roll, I’m gonna eat 30. Man, they’re so good.”
“You know what’s so funny about me? I’m not a huge candy girl. Is that shocking? Hit me with all the carbs! Hit me with all the pasta! Don’t love treats. It’s really crazy. I’m not a huge chocolate girl. I would say my favorite candy is a Cow Tail. I love to get them from the gas station. Yeah, it’s usually in a little long package and there’s like cream on the inside. Love it! That’s my favorite candy. Give me that and a piece of pizza. Trick or Treat do you have any pizza ‘cause it smells like pizza in this house. (laughs) That’s me going to the door. It smells like steak. Don’t want the Twizzler. Want the steak that you’re cooking!”
“The way we used to celebrate it when we were kids – we were out in the country; our nearest neighbor was a couple of miles away from us, so we’d gotta get dressed up and put on lipstick or whatever we could. We didn’t have Halloween costumes, and we’d walk down in the dark to Mr. and Mrs. Winslet’s house, and she’d feed us cookies and milk and then we’d walk back up in the dark. But Alice, Susie and I weren’t attentive enough to realize that Pake wasn’t with us in the group, and Pake would get up on the road going to the house and crawl up in a tree and scare the crap out of us. So, that was my Halloween memories right there.”
“Ooooohhh—I’m a chocolate guy, so I do love just a good ole Reese’s or a good ole Snickers, but when it comes to classic Halloween candy, I still, I like ole candy corn. I do. I like candy corn. Well, it only comes around once or twice a year, well I guess once a year. Maybe it’s nostalgic, all that sugar, a couple of good cavities, remind you of childhood.”
LINER AUDIO:
“Hey everybody, it’s Brad Paisley. Happy Halloween!”
“Hey! This is TJ, and I’m John, and we are Brothers Osborne. Happy Halloween.”
“Hi! I’m Carrie Underwood, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”
“Hey! What’s up, y’all? This is Darius Rucker, wishing you a very Happy Halloween.”
“Hey! It’s Dierks Bentley, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”
“Hey! This is Eric Church, wishing you a very Happy Halloween.”
“Hey! I’m Jordan Davis, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”
“Hey y’all, this is Josh Ross. Happy Halloween!”
“Hey Y’all, I’m Josh Turner, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”
“Hey everyone, this is Keith Urban, wishing you a very spooky, happy Halloween. Boo!”
“Hey! What’s up, y’all? I’m Luke Bryan, wishing you a very Happy Halloween. Boo!”
“Hi! We’re Maddie & Tae. Happy Halloween.”
“Hey everybody, I’m Parker McCollum. Happy Halloween.”
“Hey y’all, this is Priscilla Block, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”
“Hey everybody, this is Reba McEntire. Happy Halloween. Ooooooh”
“Hey everybody! This is Sam Hunt. Happy Halloween!”
“Hey y’all, it’s Tyler Hubbard, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”
“Hey what’s going on guys, it’s Tucker Wetmore. I hope you guys have a happy Halloween, be safe, be smart and get that candy.“
