Colby Acuff Opens Up About Leaving His Record Label & How It Led To His Forthcoming Concept Record, ‘Enjoy The Ride’

Colby Acuff is a man of the people.

That notion shines true now more than ever through his brand new record, which is slated to hit streaming platforms everywhere on Friday. In anticipation of the album’s release, I caught up with Acuff recently to discuss the decision to leave his record label in an ever-changing music industry landscape, and how newfound creative freedom led to his most ambitious project yet – An 11-track concept record titled Enjoy the Ride.

Having just arrived at the venue for a show with Southall in Bozeman, MT, after playing the night before in Great Falls, Acuff was practicing what he preaches as a hard touring road warrior when he hopped on a Zoom call with me to talk about the new album. Spending around 210 days on the road with his band this year, the Coeur d’Alene, ID native is no stranger to the grind. In fact, they’ve been putting up numbers higher than that each of the last few years – and this year was a bit slower by design.

At some point in your career, you’ve paid your dues and are able to afford a few extra days off. But there is definitely a time, especially for young artists, when they feel the need to accept every gig they can, and acknowledge that they need all the help they can get.

It wasn’t long ago that Acuff was in this situation. In a lot of ways, he’s still in that phase of his career. But when he made the decision to sign with a major record label in 2023, it was clear to him that it was the right move for his career as he would greatly benefit from the support, stability, and resources that a label provides. He says:

“When I signed in 2023, they had my best interest. They allowed me to not sell my catalog. It was a licensing deal for three records that we were going to do. I really needed it at the time.”

With the label, he recorded and released his two previous projects, American Son and Western White Pines, both of which have experienced considerable success. But as the industry continued to change, so too did Acuff’s needs, and although it wasn’t an easy decision, he ultimately made a move to leave the label earlier this year, before creating that third record.

“The industry was changing and I didn’t feel like the label was going to benefit me as much as they could have two years ago. The deciding factor for me was control over the music.”

Explaining further that any money received from a label is essentially in the form of debt – something that he expressed all young artists need to understand – it is clear that Acuff was looking to regain ownership of his music. But more importantly, perhaps, he was looking to regain total control over the creative process in making the music. The newfound sense of creative freedom that came with leaving the label paved the way for his brand new album Enjoy the Ride.

Working with Eddie Spear to bring this project to life – the prominent producer with whom he had collaborated on his previous two records – the duo took to the streets of Knoxville, TN; Johnson City, TN; and Asheville, NC, and interviewed dozens of random people they encountered in an effort to find ideas for his next project. An out-of-the-box concept that never would have been approved by a label, the result, Acuff found, was more inspiring than he could have imagined.

At a high level, he discovered that all people, regardless of background, share many of the same fundamental desires.

“When we asked them what they would do if they won the lottery, the first thing every single person said was ‘I’d buy a house.’ This tells me that winning the lottery and buying a house are exactly the same to people, which is really sad.”

Chalking this up to an inherent desire for stability, Acuff continued to expound upon these desires he discovered, revealing that people also value freedom, crave validation, and want to be seen as a good person. Inspired by these themes, Acuff used these as the foundation for the concept and characters that are most prominent in his new record.

“Instead of getting 10 or 11 songs that were specific to these individual people we interviewed, I realized I had to write 10 or 11 songs about everyone. And then I made it a concept record, and it tells a full story through about a man and a woman, and all of the tropes that people deal with every day are embedded in these two characters.”

Thus, Enjoy the Ride was born, and as the male and female characters develop throughout each track, every listener is bound to relate to their troubles and triumphs, proving that all of us humans are more the same than we are different, a message that is often lost upon society in today’s division. Ironically, Acuff’s own story reflects many of these same desires, having initially signed with the record label for stability and validation, but ultimately leaving in search of creative freedom, that allowed him to have this inspirational experience and turn it into a thought provoking concept record.

The making of Enjoy the Ride was eye opening for Acuff, to say the least, and he gained a great deal of perspective throughout the process:

“I just want to give people agency in their life. And I’m not in it to be famous. I’m in it so that the songs can be way bigger than me… At the end of the day, I’m just a fly fishing guide from Northern Idaho. I’m pretty lucky.”

And with that, make sure to keep an eye out for Colby Acuff’s sixth album Enjoy the Ride to drop this Friday. In the meantime, check out the track list below and give the singles that have been released thus far a listen.

Enjoy the Ride Tracklist:

“Trail Less Traveled”

“Enjoy the Ride”

“Her Song (Numb to Everything)”

“Love Was Just a Feeling”

“As Good as It Gets”

“Average American”

“Most Lonesome Song”

“His Song (What’s a Man’s Supposed to Be)”

“Cost of Life”

“Simple Little Life”

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