In the wake of the Nashville school shooting, a country star takes a stand on gun control 

Ketch Secor is best known as the frontman of the country band Old Crow Medicine Show, but he's also a school administrator, and the father of young children.

He was wearing all three hats when he penned an opinion piece for the New York Times called "Country Music Can Lead America Out of Its Obsession With Guns."

In it, Secor calls on his fellow country musicians to join him in taking a stand against assault-style weapons in the U.S. 

He says he was inspired to do so after a shooter opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., on March 27, killing three nine-year old students and three adult staff using legally purchased firearms.

Secor spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal about his essay, and the role he thinks country music can play in bringing gun reform to the United States. Here is part of their conversation.

Apart from, you know, being in Nashville, there are many other ways that this latest school shooting hit home for you. Can you tell me about that?

It's been a heartbreaking experience in my community of Nashville. But doubly so as a parent of children that are the same ages as the kids who died at Covenant School last week. And then triply so because I started a school in my community and I'm thinking about school shootings with an administrative hat on.

And then, as a country musician, you know, I'm urging my brethren and sistren in to speak up.

One of your children had just had their first drill in school about how to deal with these kinds of scenarios, is that right?

Yeah. And I'm sure there's some moms and dads across Canada who have had the same experience of talking to their kids about how they feel about having huddled behind a desk. 

It's a different kind of fire drill. And I wouldn't want my kid to be in a school fire. That sounds so, so terrifying. But there's something different about when the threat is another person.

You wrote for the New York Times ... that it's not uncommon for you to hear one of your most famous songs, Wagon Wheel, for example, you know, blasting from a pickup truck that also happens to have [National Rifle Association] bumper stickers. What do you want to say to those fans?

The first thing I want to say is how much I love them. And how the political persuasions of my audience, they don't challenge my own. I believe what I believe. And I'm comfortable with being in a space where people think differently, even vastly differently. Different gods, different ideologies, different allegiances. That's all fine with me.

I love country music. And to put it bluntly, I love my redneck fans. I love them deeply and intimately. And I want to provide music for them because I care about them. I want there to be soundtracks for rural America with fiddles and banjos and harmony singing.

It's just at this moment in time, I want my audience to know that I feel that I've got to go out on a limb here and say that the assault rifles, we got to give them up. It's time to make a sacrifice for our kids. 

And I realize that that has the power to alienate people. But I'm not doing it from a [perspective] of, you know, "We're going to come to your house." I'm doing it with love. And it's a question. It's like, will the circle be unbroken?

Do you think your fans are prepared to hear that message?

I think my fans who have listened to Old Crow music more than once or twice know where my heart is. So it's not so much them that I'm concerned about. My platform is about as big as a platform can get when you have this many banjos and harmonicas in your band.

I think I'm more interested in helping start a conversation in Nashville about how people with much more vast platforms and opportunities to speak out than myself may think about country music's problematic past with guns and its opportunity to be a part of a national conversation that's so desperately needed right now.

WATCH | The Nashville shooting ignites political tensions in the U.S.:

How the Nashville school shooting led to new political battles | About That

2 years ago

Duration 11:44

This week, the world witnessed yet another mass shooting at a school in the U.S. Three 9-year-old students and three staff members were killed. Andrew Chang discusses how this school shooting in particular has been politicized by some lawmakers.

I was struck by several parts of your essay, but I'll just read one in particular. You wrote, "Conservative musicians are always vocal when it comes to the culture wars, but stars with moderate views tend not to weigh in publicly. The motive is genuine. We don't want to offend anyone. But in times as dire as these, silence is complicity. It's time for country music makers to use their platforms to speak candidly to their conservative audiences." 

How do you think country music and its stars can play a part and actually be effective in bringing in different kinds of gun control measures?

Every morning at about 7:30, the musicians that are on Jumbotrons around the country and playing to sold-out arenas are actually in the pickup line dropping off their kids at school. You know, we're just regular working folk; we just have a really cool job.

But we live in Nashville, Tennessee, primarily, these country singers who are popular all around the world. And we tend to be an educated and centrist-thinking and open-to-other-opinions type of demographic. And we love our kids. You know, all of the big, big stars with kids, their hearts are broken right now.

So what I could imagine would be this opportunity that country music has to take a stand.

[It's] not [that] everybody's got to get rid of the Second Amendment in the United States. It's not that at all. Just token advancements to push the needle a little bit. It's been 25-some years since I was a kid and the murders happened at Columbine. And nothing has changed, particularly in gun laws down south. 

What kind of response have you received so far? 

I woke up this morning hoping that the world was going to be different because I took a stand. And, you know, I think that there's a crushing reality.

I took my stand because I need about 100,000 other people to take theirs. And that's what I'm asking. 

We all deserve safe schools for our kids. Safe schools should be an inalienable right. Personally, I think that that right should be a more important one to lawmakers than the Second Amendment.

At a vigil last week after the shooting in Nashville, you were on stage and you sang, Will The Circle be Unbroken?, which you referred to a moment ago. It's a Christian hymn for those who might not know, but it's been recorded by many big stars over the years. But what was that moment like for you singing those words?

 I had my my third grade child with me blowing some harmonica and helping me sing the choruses. And I thought that was an important way to exemplify just who whose voice really matters in this.