Chase Rice can trace a lot of his success back to the bro-country movement. Rice helped pen Florida Georgia Line's debut single, "Cruise." The song went on to have more than 155 million streams. Rice also had early hits of his own, within the same style of music, including "Ready Set Roll" and "Drinkin' Beer, Talkin' God. Amen," the latter a collaboration with FGL.
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Rice is grateful for the success of that era of his career, even as he insists those days are definitely behind him, for good.
"You look at 'Ready, Set, Roll' and 'Drinkin' Beer. Talkin' God. Amen.' and all those songs that were hits for me back in the day," Rice reflects to People. "And it keeps me wondering why that is what people want to hear, as opposed to the more quality, better music that I'm making now?"
"I don't have an answer for that," he adds, "but I'm not going to go back to what I was doing. This is who I am."
Rice understands why he released the music he did several years ago. It's a chapter in his life, one he has no interest in repeating.
"I was clueless," Rice admits to Whiskey Riff. "Why wouldn't I have been? I learned to play guitar in 2006. A lineman at Carolina had me play Dave Matthews and stuff in the dorm rooms. I'd sing along to some country stuff, and he'd be like, 'Dude, you should be a country singer.' That's like saying I should be an astronaut. It was that far from reality for me."
Chase Rice's New Album
Rice is working on a new album, one he is happily releasing on his own. The 39-year-old, whose Go Down Singin' record came out last September, can't wait to share his new music with his fans.
"We're going to add three or four more, call it an album, and put it out early this year," Rice reveals to American Songwriter. "And that has nothing to do with why we even sat down. We sat down to talk about the Go Down Singin' record, which I love."
Rice is proud of the music he has recently released. Still, he is also a bit exasperated that it hasn't been heard by as many people as he would like.
"That has been the frustrating part of the last two years because it's the best music I've ever made," Rice says. "But the masses haven't heard it. They don't know it exists. So how do we get people to really believe what I'm doing? And the short answer for me is just keep doing it."
