Chase Rice Says He’s Done Chasing Radio Hits – “Make The Best Song We Can Possibly Make”

Career resurgences in country music are nothing new.

From George Jones reinventing himself with “He Stopped Loving Her Today” after a six-year #1 hitless streak to more recently Randy Houser delivering a career-best album with Magnolia in 2019 after years of bro-country success, resurgences in the genre come in many different shapes and sizes.

One of the most intriguing of these to watch over the past few years has undoubtedly been Chase Rice. As many know at this point, Rice was one of the poster boys for the mid-2010s era that was simply dominated by bro-country. Up there with the likes of Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, Cole Swindell and more, the North Carolina native scored early hits with middling bro-country tracks such as “Ready Set Roll,” “Gonna Wanna Tonight” and “Eyes on You.” Notably, he also wrote Florida Georgia Line’s smash hit, “Cruise.”

When he sat down with the Whiskey Riff Raff last year, he had no problem talking about his bro-country past:

“It was an interesting route for my whole career. I just randomly listened last night to an album I put out in 2012 called ‘Dirt Road Communion.’ And it wasn’t great, but there were signs of, ‘I’m just doing what I’m doing.’

Right around that time is when we wrote ‘Cruise,’ and ‘Cruise’ is the biggest blessing and curse that I could have asked for. We were in there, write it, it blows up and I’m like, ‘F**k, this is cool.’ And that was when Bro Country became a thing. Love it or hate it, it was a thing. And it was huge.”

Since 2023, however, Rice has completely reinvented himself and distanced himself from the sound he became synonymous with. Releasing I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell and Go Down Singin’ in back-to-back years, the “Circa 1943” singer forced himself back into the hearts of many country fans simply due to its authenticity, traditional nature and, quite frankly, lack of the modern elements present on his early work.

Last week, he followed them up with yet another stellar album, ELDORA, which once again proved that Rice was fully committed to being his authentic self through timeless storytelling and instrumentation.

In another recent interview, before the release of ELDORA, Rice dove into his mindset behind the release of his last three albums.

Instead of focusing on radio hits like he did back during the height of bro-country, he wants to chase the sound and style that best suits the song itself. Bringing up the fact that labels still rely heavily on radio play for promotion, Rice would also highlight the fact that he’s not interested in writing radio hits anymore.

“What do I need a major label for? I need them for their money to pay for the record. I need them to promote the sh*t out of the record. What’s the number one way labels promote? Radio. I’m not giving them radio songs anymore.

Some of them probably could be if a more slick, pop producer produced some of these songs, I bet there’s some radio hits. But the way Oscar [Charles] and I are producing these songs, we’re not necessarily thinking like, ‘What is the format for a radio song and what does that sound like?’ We’re thinking, ‘How do we make the best song we can possibly make with real instrumentation, no auto tune, no nothing.'” 

Rice would also note that ELDORA was all recorded in one take before subsequently being mixed and mastered.

“The ‘ELDORA’ record we’re putting out in September is one take. I was singing in one of these [microphones] and playing into one similar… If you screw it up, you gotta start it over.

Ultimately, it’s a tough thing for an artist to do. Especially when you consider the commercial and financial success that came with the height of bro/pop country, it would have been incredibly easy for Rice to simply ride the wave straight to the bank. However, it’s been nothing short of satisfying to watch Rice essentially say, “To hell with that” and create the music that’s not only marginally better than his previous output but also more fulfilling to him as an artist.

And what’s more… it’s actually good.

“Eldora”

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