27 Songwriters, One Song: Russell Dickerson on ‘Worth Your Wild’

Russell Dickerson, the man behind the fun hit, “Happen to Me,” is Elaina Smith’s co-host for the week on Backstage Country. Dickerson will not only play good country music all week long; he will also spill the tea on his latest single, “Worth Your Wild.”  

Smith noted that there are a lot of songwriters credited for “Worth Your Wild,” including the band Crazy Town. Dickerson explained, “Well, it started off, I just had the title ‘Worth your Wild.’ Just a little flip on ‘worth your while.’ Then, when we did the ‘You're my butterfly, sugar baby.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, we're definitely gonna have to get this cleared.’ But I was like, ‘It's perfect.’ I love where it sits in the song and the verse and everything.   

He continued, “And so, they hunted it down, and they're like, ‘Okay, so that's Crazy Town.’ But Crazy Town is an interpolation of Red Hot Chili Peppers. So it was like, this song is how I learned that, by the way. So that's why there's 27 writers on it.”  

The Tennessee native also revealed that Crazy Town and Red Hot Chili Peppers did not take any royalty fee from the track, and they did not take time responding to their email. “I don't know why they didn't take any,” Dickerson admitted. “But God bless the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Crazy Town.”  

Everything worked out in the end, but the 38-year-old singer revealed they had nearly chosen a different single. “If that hadn't worked out, because we have an ad date coming up. We gotta get rolling here. And then, like, 11th hour, it was right before the record came out and all that, it was like, holy. First of all, we got it cleared. Second of all, they were taking zero percent. So that was a beautiful day.”  

Check out the track below.