Ryan Hurd joins Kelleigh Bannen on Today’s Country Radio to discuss his journey of going from a Nashville songwriter to recording artist, and, ultimately, releasing his debut album Pelago. They also chat about the origin of his massive hit “Chasing After You” featuring his wife, Maren Morris. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full tomorrow at 11am PT / 1pm CT / 2pm ET or anytime on-demand here.
Ryan Hurd on Recording “Chasing After You”
This song was like Music Row famous for a long time… And, [the songwriters] Brinley [Addington] and Jerry [Flowers] would sing it at rounds and then artists would hold it and promise to record it. And, that’s just how it goes sometimes. That’s the game we play as a writer and somehow it fell to me and I still look back on it. And I’m like, “I have no idea how of all the people in town,” this song, it was upon my shoulders to put it out. Because, the demo is exactly like what you hear in in the master. It’s that cool. You hear it and you’re just hooked and we’re just really lucky to have been gifted this amazing, amazing life-changing piece of art.
Ryan Hurd on “What Are You Drinking” Feeling Like the Most Important Song on His Album
The other song on this record, that’s outside is “What Are You Drinking.” And, I just got sent that I was on a beach in Mexico and Aaron [Eshuis] wrote it with Troy Cartwright and Andy Albert. And he sent it to me. He’s like, “Check this out.” He never sends me anything and I listened to it and Troy’s singing it. And I texted Troy immediately and just said, “If you’re not going to cut this, somebody is, and it might be me. So I need to know if you’re okay with that. I need to know before I even talked to Aaron about this and you should ask yourself if you’re okay with somebody else having this.” And, I can’t imagine not having that song on this record. It wouldn’t be… Every single song is important, but that one to me feels like the most important one for whatever reason.
Ryan Hurd on Prioritizing Creating Good Art Over Chasing Success
RYAN: As far as it being successful, the best records that have ever come out of this town did not start out with how do we make this.
KELLEIGH: A wild success, yeah.
RYAN: Right. How do we make this a platinum album? They start with this is a little bit different. Like Sam Hunt, when that came out and everybody thought it was too rappy. That dude was just writing, listening to Drake and writing country songs. Nobody had done it like that before now. It’s amazing how many people come out and they sound like Sam and they sound like Maren and they sound like this. But, those are the records that people remember, sound like Miranda after ‘Revolution,’ right? There’s this thing where if you push out a little bit further than think people, sonically and lyrically have ever ventured, it’s going to be tough for a second, but it’s going to be worth it one way or another. And, I don’t know if this record does any of that stuff that those did and it I’m sure it does not. But, to me it was putting the writing first and putting… Just doing it to tickle myself, you know what I mean? Just to look at it and be like, “I like starting it out with this song and I like this and I like this song and this one would be fun to play live.” And, the weirdest part for me was picking a name. It was Sony LP one RH for three months.
Ryan Hurd on How He Came Up With the Album Title ‘Pelago’
I needed a word that rhymed with Chicago and that was the one I could come up with. And, I thought I made it up. I was like that sounds like an oceany song because of that island. The Philippines are an archipelago or whatever, however the geography term is. We just cut the word in half and call it something and that’s something, no one will even… so it was a placeholder. And, then I started looking it up on the internet, like a week later because I was at that song, took four months to write. And like, “Oh my gosh, this is actually a word in another language. This is a little over my own head, but I like it. So I’m just going to keep it in there because I can’t come up with anything better.”
Ryan Hurd on ‘Pelago’ and Its Place In Country Music
I think that I’ve grown a lot since I started writing. I’ve grown a lot since I’ve been trying to have my own project. And this is sort of that first combination where you’re like, “If this is the only thing people ever hear from me, I’m okay with it.” And this is the stamp I want to put on this moment. This is a stamp I want to put on me, my name. And you know, when people look back on country music in this time, maybe they’ll remember this record a little bit. And this is my little piece of that history, whether it’s big or small. I’m okay with it. And I’m really just psyched for people to hear it. And I hope they like it.
