‘My Kind Of Country’ Judges Orville Peck, Mickey Guyton & Jimmie Allen Admit It’s ‘Heartbreaking’ To Reject Contestants — But Whiskey Helps


Country music stars Orville Peck, Mickey Guyton and Jimmie Allen are the judges for “My Kind of Country”, a new Nashville-themed music competition series streaming on Apple TV+, executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Kacey Mulgraves.


Peck, Guyton and Allen spoke with ET Canada’s Morgan Hoffman about the series, with all three admitting the most difficult part of the process is telling an aspiring singer they don’t have what it takes to proceed further in the competition.


You get so invested in them, you know, you want them all to do so well…” said Guyton. “And so, it’s like when you have to tell them no. Like, we’ve all been on that end before. We’ve all been told no at some point and it never feels good. And then to have to be the person to tell them… it was heartbreaking.”




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As Peck conceded, making the decisions about who moves forward and who goes home were not easy. “Everyone was so talented and so unique as artists, it’s sometimes just felt impossible to even make a decision because you feel like, well, everyone here is so special,” he explained.


“And so we drank a lot,” added Guyton.


“Yeah, we would drink a lot of whiskey to try and get the courage,” said Peck. “They told us we just had to stop drinking whiskey because then we would be, like, crying.”


Allen joined in the imbibing, but revealed he had a slightly easier time saying goodbye to contestants because he advised them that winning or losing is no reflection on their talent — or their future success.




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“I mean, the reason why I didn’t lose sleep is because I told all the contestants when I first had them by myself, I said, ‘Listen, at the end of the day, you all need to understand we’re making a TV show. We’re looking for a winner. Everybody’s going home, even a winner. So when you go home now or later, just take everything you learned and apply it to your life. And this show’s over to get your career because your career don’t start now. Your career starts when the show’s over,'” he said.


“My Kind of Country” debuts on Friday, March 24.