Jordan, Locklan, Kristen and Eloise Davis.Photo: Katelyn Brown
“I’ll blame it on hunting season,” Davis, 33, tells PEOPLE in a recent backstage interview in Chicago, mumbling something about “conceiving babies” and “staying warm” during the winter months amidst a barrage of laughter. “[My daughter] Eloise wasborn in the fall, right around the same time as my first tour. I don’t know what to say!”
Indeed, on Sept. 2, the Louisiana native found himself not on a stage preparing for his own headlining Buy Dirt Tour, but in a doctor’s office alongside his wife Kristen, an attorney, secretly praying that their second child was going to arrive on the due date as planned.
Jordan, Locklan and Eloise Davis.Katelyn Brown
With the Labor Day weekend coming up, the couple was told that the earliest an induction could take place was on Sept. 7, just two days before Davis was set to be in Minneapolis to kick off his tour. Feeling helpless, the two went home to figure out what to do next.
But then, they got an email.
“It was like 9:30 at night and my wife had gone to bed, but then she checked her email, and they were like, ‘OK, you need to be at the hospital at 4:30 a.m.,'” recalls the multi-platinum country star. “It was go-time.”
And on Sept. 4, littleLocklan Joseph arrived.
Eloise, Jordan, Locklan and Kristen Davis.Katelyn Brown
“The first house we had was in a neighborhood called Lockeland Springs, Tennessee,” recalls Davis. “It was the first place me and my wife moved into. And while we’ve since left that neighborhood, we still go to a church there calledThe Church at Lockeland Springs. So, I’ve always loved a version of that name.”
The family got to bring Locklan home on Sept. 6, and Davis left for Minneapolis for the first show of his Buy Dirt Tour on the morning of Sept. 9.
“You know, it’s just part of the job,” Davis explains. “To anybody out there thinking that you’re going to come out and play music and make a living on the road and not miss a few things back at the house, I’m here to tell you that ain’t how it works. You might as well get used to it.”
And thankfully, being out on tour does allow Davis to catch up on some much-deserved sleep.
“Last night was the best night of sleep I’ve had since Locklan was born,” Davis notes. “Granted, it was in the back of a bus going 70 miles an hour down the road! So that tells you how nicely things are going at our house with two children.”
Lack of sleep aside, things at home have been going as smoothly as they can despite Davis’ weekly absences, with big sisterEloise Larkinseemingly shining in her new role.
“She’s transitioning into becoming the big sister,” says Davis of his daughter who was born in November 2019. “I think she’s handling it great. She’s missing some of the attention that she was used to getting, but she’s sweet to Locklan and gives him hugs and kisses.”
Becoming a family of four has, in many ways, changed everything for Davis, including the way he looks at songs such as his current heart-tugger of a single “Buy Dirt,” which recently gave Davis his first CMA nomination for musical event of the year on the upcoming 55th Annual CMA Awards.
“If I’m not a parent, I don’t know if I write ‘Buy Dirt,'” concludes Davis, who recently unveiled the acoustic version of the song featuring country superstarLuke Bryan. “When I wrote that, it was with three other guys [Jacob Davis, Josh Jenkins and Matt Jenkins] who are dads. And we have all seen what it’s like to go from having your own selfish goals to having a kid who is solely dependent on you. Everything outside of that… you could care less. And it happens overnight! To me, ‘Buy Dirt’ is about finding those things that make you want to get up and do whatever it is you’re doing to provide for your family.”
source: people.com
