Chris Young joins Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen for an interview to talk about releasing his eighth album, ‘Famous Friends.’ He talks about collaborating with Mitchell Tenpenny and the Nashville snow storm that is responsible for a handful of songs on this album. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full on-demand here.
Chris Young on what he has learned eight albums into his career
That it’s okay to take chances on stuff. It’s okay to do something different than you did on an album before. I definitely know more people. One of the reasons that I named this album Famous Friends is not just the collabs with Mitchell and Kane, obviously with the title track and Lauren Alaina, but also all the songwriters, the musicians, people that had helped me co-produce some of these tracks. I don’t know all those people when I started my career. I don’t know that I’m comfortable enough to go, “Hey, I’m going to do something really different and just see if it works.”
Chris Young on the one friend who didn’t like his song “Famous Friends”
What’s really funny is, so Corey [Crowder] and I and Cary Barlowe, write “Famous Friends,” we’re on the road. We kept all… Like all the guitar tracks, all the bass tracks are all Cary like lying into a computer, on a bus, which is just wild. But that’s what we ended up doing. So we track the song, it’s done, we put it out. But the week before, I’ve played this song for a bunch of people. And some people are like, “That’s good,” most people are like, “We love it.” I played it for the one friend that’s like, “Nah, man, not it.” And it’s like “Hey, I asked you for your opinion, which I did and you told me the truth, which is how I took it.” But then I get to spin it at the end to him now, every time I see him, I’m like, “Hey, remember that song you hated?”
Chris Young on writing “At The End of the Bar” with Mitchell Tenpenny during a Nashville snow storm
So we’ve been friends for a while and actually we’ve probably hung out way more times than we’ve written songs, but we’d booked this date and all of a sudden it dumps a ton of ice, not snow, in Nashville, it’s just ice, normally is what we get. And for a couple of days it was hard to leave your driveway here. So I hit him up day three, which is when we were supposed to write and was like, “Hey man, do you want to cancel?” He goes, “No,” he goes, “I’ve got this like FOMO of what if we’re going to write something really cool today?” I was like, “I feel you, I’m down, I’m good to go, but I just don’t want you to feel like you have to go, if you need to reschedule.” He was like, “No, let’s go do it.” And it’s actually a huge credit to Mitchell because I was just talking, Mitchell, myself and Chris DeStefano, who’s my co-producer on this track. We’re all talking about how me and Mitchell met. I was like, “Oh, I mean, we were sitting there the other day at the end of a bar and Mitchell just goes, that’s the song.” And I’m like, what? And I’m normally really good about hearing people in conversation say something that I’m like, “Oh, I can twist that into a song title.” And I missed that one completely.
