Florida Georgia Line had a Tough Time Narrowing Down Songs for New Album

"I think when we get down to about 20 songs it really becomes difficult,” Hubbard says. 

Written by Laura Hostelley
Florida Georgia Line had a Tough Time Narrowing Down Songs for New Album
Photo Credit: Ryan Smith

Narrowing down an entire catalogue to a single album is no easy task, it’s almost like choosing your favorite children. When Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley were making their way through this same process in the creation of their new album, Dig Your Roots, they faced the same feat, but along the way they found some tracks that hit closer to home.

“They kind of start to weed themselves out and I think when we get down to about 20 songs it really becomes difficult,” Hubbard commented during their recent album release party in Nashville. “We just sit around and try to narrow it down to the best songs that fit the record. The strongest songs we feel like is in our power to choose and that’s just kind of what we do. After we make those decisions we just move forward and forget about the rest and don’t let it eat us up.”

They also have another remedy to ease their minds when a song they love doesn’t make they cut. Lucky for them they have plenty of famous and talented friends who might be able to take an unused song and make it their own.

“That’s a great problem to have but we have a ton of songs we can cut, and we can love a song so much and say hey Jason [Aldean] or Luke [Bryan] or Cole [Swindell] you got to cut this song man, we’re not able to cut it and it’s a smash,” Hubbard continued.

There are some songs that just made sense to be a part of their record, the ones that pull on heart strings and resonate with both the award winning duo and their fans. During their recent album release celebration, they shared what some of those songs were.

“’Grow Old With Me’ is a song that will probably never be a single but it’s a song that was Hayley and I’s first dance at our wedding, so that song obviously has a lot of meaning and will always have a lot of meaning,” Hubbard shared. “Even if it’s irrelevant ten years from now, for us it’s special.”

“’While He’s Still Around’ is a song that’s really special that BK sings that we wrote years ago after my dad passed and after his dad almost passed. There’s just a lot of depth in that song and in this record. A lot of these songs really do have a special meaning it’s hard to pick one I think, they all kind of carry their own weight and their own purpose and have a reason for being on the record,” Hubbard added.

Another track that cuts deep for FGL is “Music Healing,” a tune that came about from a tattoo Kelley got inked on his forearm back in 2012.

“We were all out of ideas, looking through our notes looking for titles and all of a sudden, I said oh we should write ‘Music is Healing’ and we kind of just dug in deeper and said ‘How could we write that song?’” Kelley explained. “It’s a really scary title to write, we could really easily mess that up. When you got a title like that or a hook as songwriters you don’t want to mess that up. We just chased it and music is healing and we can all attest to that, that’s why we’re all lovers of music. It has so many forms of healing and it’s amazing.”

Dig Your Roots is available for purchase now.