BRELAND joins Kelleigh Bannen on Today’s Country Radio to talk about his new single, “Praise The Lord (feat. Thomas Rhett),” and his mission of inclusion through what he calls the “cross country” genre. Listen to the full interview with BRELAND here.
BRELAND on “Praise The Lord”
As someone that grew up in church and has a faith background, I think it’s really easy to forget where you came from and to think that you did everything on your own, and I’m not someone that believes that. I really feel like a lot of this, if not all of it, has been divinely orchestrated. And so, I’m always praising the Lord for different things that happen, both good and bad, because you learn lessons on both sides. But I think being able to do what I love for a living and not having always been able to do that is something that I’m extremely grateful for. And hopefully what people take away from this song is that regardless, as I say in the pre-chorus, win or lose, praise the Lord. It’s a song about gratitude, being thankful.
BRELAND on Cross Country As a Genre
To me cross country, the genre, I’ve coined the term for it, but I’m by no means the first person to contribute to it by the definition that I have for it, which is just the intersection of country music and all the other genres of music. So people have been making cross country music for decades but now that there’s a term for it, and I think of a project that speaks to it, at least from the perspective that I have, hopefully it inspires a new wave of people who might not have felt like they had anything to contribute to country music, that will be more inspired to make it or people who are already within the country music landscape that reach across the aisle and start playing around with some other sounds. I just think that the collaborative aspect of this is what really makes it powerful and what makes it inclusive and I’m trying to serve as like a cultural bridge in a way.
