Chris Young:
The Cover Story
Chris Young:
The Cover Story
Chris Young; Photo credit: Jeff Johnson
It’s July 5, and visitors and locals alike are still basking in the glow of a Nashville Independence Day—one that saw the biggest fireworks show and the largest crowd in the city’s history, a welcome sight on the tail end of a global pandemic that kept mass gatherings, including concerts, at bay. The day following the massive patriotic celebration might feel a little quieter, but Lower Broadway soon begins to heat up just like the unforgiving afternoon sun.
Multi-Platinum artist Chris Young looks out into a growing sea of people as he preps to film an indoor scene for the music video supporting his next radio single, “At The End of a Bar.” By the time Young and his “At The End of a Bar” co-writer and collaborator Mitchell Tenpenny take the massive stage set up on the banks of the Cumberland River for the final shot of the day, 15,000 people have packed onto the steaming asphalt lit by the neon signs of Music City’s most iconic honky tonks.
“It was so cool because people don’t know that song yet, and by the end of the first time we played it, people were already singing along—they were singing every word. It’s an incredible feeling,” Young shares of the moment. “We had kind of talked about the idea of making the scope and scale of this video as huge as we possibly could for this song. It’s got to be one of the biggest things I’ve ever done.”
Young, Tenpenny and their team certainly accomplished their ambitious goal. By the time people read this, Young’s eighth studio effort, Famous Friends, which features “At The End of a Bar,” will be out in the wild, as will the epic music video. To be fair, fans had already committed a handful of the LP’s songs to memory in advance of the release simply because Famous Friends was four years in the making—the largest gap between albums Young has ever taken.
Chris Young; Photo credit: Jeff Johnson
It’s July 5, and visitors and locals alike are still basking in the glow of a Nashville Independence Day—one that saw the biggest fireworks show and the largest crowd in the city’s history, a welcome sight on the tail end of a global pandemic that kept mass gatherings, including concerts, at bay. The day following the massive patriotic celebration might feel a little quieter, but Lower Broadway soon begins to heat up just like the unforgiving afternoon sun.
Multi-Platinum artist Chris Young looks out into a growing sea of people as he preps to film an indoor scene for the music video supporting his next radio single, “At The End of a Bar.” By the time Young and his “At The End of a Bar” co-writer and collaborator Mitchell Tenpenny take the massive stage set up on the banks of the Cumberland River for the final shot of the day, 15,000 people have packed onto the steaming asphalt lit by the neon signs of Music City’s most iconic honky tonks.
Chris Young; Photo credit: Jeff Johnson
“It was so cool because people don’t know that song yet, and by the end of the first time we played it, people were already singing along—they were singing every word. It’s an incredible feeling,” Young shares of the moment. “We had kind of talked about the idea of making the scope and scale of this video as huge as we possibly could for this song. It’s got to be one of the biggest things I’ve ever done.”
Young, Tenpenny and their team certainly accomplished their ambitious goal. By the time people read this, Young’s eighth studio effort, Famous Friends, which features “At The End of a Bar,” will be out in the wild, as will the epic music video. To be fair, fans had already committed a handful of the LP’s songs to memory in advance of the release simply because Famous Friends was four years in the making—the largest gap between albums Young has ever taken.
“I feel like I’ve been teasing everybody for multiple years,” the GRAMMY®-nominee admits. “People are ready for more music, which is always fun to hear.”
Good things, however, come to those who wait, and Famous Friends proves that adage true. For nearly two years, fans have already been making memories to the opening cut, “Raised On Country,” which namechecks many of the country traditionalists Young grew up on—like George Strait, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Joe Diffie—and helped title his headlining tour back in 2019 that saw Young play to more than 400,000 fans in three different countries. Meanwhile, the previously-released “Drowning” afforded Young his inaugural CMT Music Award after he performed the deeply personal ballad in honor of Kane Brown’s late drummer, Kenny Dixon, at the CMT Artists of the Year ceremony. “It’s the only song that I’ve ever broken down while singing before,” Young confesses of the emotional track he penned following the passing of his own close friend. Moreover, the Brown-assisted “Famous Friends” just became Young’s 12th No. 1 and his 10th chart-topper as a songwriter. It also earned Young and Brown a fan-voted 2021 CMT Music Award for “Collaborative Video of the Year.”
The song serves as a fitting title-track for this new collection. “There’s just a lot of people who came together to make this record what it is,” Young shares. “And I love that the name encapsulates so much of that.”
In addition to Brown, Famous Friends features background vocals from songwriters Sarah Buxton and Hillary Lindsey. ACM Award winner Lauren Alaina also joins Young on breakup anthem “Town Ain’t Big Enough.”
“I think Chris has one of the best voices in Nashville. I was super excited when he asked me to collaborate on ‘Town Ain’t Big Enough,’” Alaina affirms. “I think that song is a smash.”
She also testifies to the integrity of her duet partner. “Just the other day, I was walking home from an appointment on Music Row, and Chris saw me and scooped me up and drove me home,” she shares. “It was hilarious. Thanks again, Chris!”
Then, of course, there’s the creative wordplay of Young’s larger-than-life collaboration with Tenpenny, which the pair penned during a rare Nashville snow day earlier this year.
“We were just talking about how we were at the end of the bar the last week when we hung out. We were venting about life, and we both looked at each other at the same time and thought ‘At The End of a Bar’ was a great title,” Tenpenny remembers of the unexpected inspiration. “Then I said, ‘Think about everything that starts at the end of the bar,’ and the song just kind of wrote itself after that. [Chris] DeStefano made an incredible track that was fun to sing to. I sang the demo, but Chris—being such a great singer—wanted to do it as well. When we heard both of our voices on it, it kind of became a no brainer.”
“I feel like I’ve been teasing everybody for multiple years,” the GRAMMY®-nominee admits. “People are ready for more music, which is always fun to hear.”
Good things, however, come to those who wait, and Famous Friends proves that adage true. For nearly two years, fans have already been making memories to the opening cut, “Raised On Country,” which namechecks many of the country traditionalists Young grew up on—like George Strait, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Joe Diffie—and helped title his headlining tour back in 2019 that saw Young play to more than 400,000 fans in three different countries. Meanwhile, the previously-released “Drowning” afforded Young his inaugural CMT Music Award after he performed the deeply personal ballad in honor of Kane Brown’s late drummer, Kenny Dixon, at the CMT Artists of the Year ceremony. “It’s the only song that I’ve ever broken down while singing before,” Young confesses of the emotional track he penned following the passing of his own close friend. Moreover, the Brown-assisted “Famous Friends” just became Young’s 12th No. 1 and his 10th chart-topper as a songwriter. It also earned Young and Brown a fan-voted 2021 CMT Music Award for “Collaborative Video of the Year.”
The song serves as a fitting title-track for this new collection. “There’s just a lot of people who came together to make this record what it is,” Young shares. “And I love that the name encapsulates so much of that.”
In addition to Brown, Famous Friends features background vocals from songwriters Sarah Buxton and Hillary Lindsey. ACM Award winner Lauren Alaina also joins Young on breakup anthem “Town Ain’t Big Enough.”
Chris Young – One of Them Nights. Video Credit: SME (on behalf of RCA Records Label Nashville)
“I think Chris has one of the best voices in Nashville. I was super excited when he asked me to collaborate on ‘Town Ain’t Big Enough,’” Alaina affirms. “I think that song is a smash.”
She also testifies to the integrity of her duet partner. “Just the other day, I was walking home from an appointment on Music Row, and Chris saw me and scooped me up and drove me home,” she shares. “It was hilarious. Thanks again, Chris!”
Then, of course, there’s the creative wordplay of Young’s larger-than-life collaboration with Tenpenny, which the pair penned during a rare Nashville snow day earlier this year.
“We were just talking about how we were at the end of the bar the last week when we hung out. We were venting about life, and we both looked at each other at the same time and thought ‘At The End of a Bar’ was a great title,” Tenpenny remembers of the unexpected inspiration. ‘Then I said, ‘Think about everything that starts at the end of the bar,’ and the song just kind of wrote itself after that. [Chris] DeStefano made an incredible track that was fun to sing to. I sang the demo, but Chris—being such a great singer—wanted to do it as well. When we heard both of our voices on it, it kind of became a no brainer.”
Chris Young; Photo credit: Jeff Johnson
That’s exactly how Young—a Grand Ole Opry member since 2017—feels about all of the collaborations that make up Famous Friends. For the Murfreesboro, Tenn., native, working with a laundry list of Nashville’s best songwriters, producers and fellow artists was a “no brainer.” “It really felt right. Nothing felt forced, and nothing felt pressured on this,” says Young, whose previous duets with artists like Vince Gill (“Sober Saturday Night”) and Cassadee Pope (“Think of You”) have ascended the charts. “Obviously, with the craziness of 2020, the one place I could go hole up in was my studio. And so that ended up turning into a lot of what this record is.”
Suddenly left with a blank calendar and an empty house, save for his dog Porter (named after country legend Porter Wagoner), Young decided to hunker down and finally finish the album fans were clamoring for—his follow-up to 2017’s critically-lauded Losing Sleep.
The three-time CMA nominee ended up co-writing 13 of the project’s 14 tracks and co-producing it alongside DeStefano, Corey Crowder and Mark Coleman.
“I really do think I’ve put together a project that says a lot of different things. You’ve got your happy songs, your sad songs, your love songs, your breakup songs, your anthems. I feel like there’s a little bit of everything for someone on this record,” he concedes. “A lot of pieces of myself went into this album in a lot of very specific ways, whether it’s what I listened to, how I grew up, or relationships I’ve been through; and I think you can hear that.”
That’s exactly how Young—a Grand Ole Opry member since 2017—feels about all of the collaborations that make up Famous Friends. For the Murfreesboro, Tenn., native, working with a laundry list of Nashville’s best songwriters, producers and fellow artists was a “no brainer.” “It really felt right. Nothing felt forced, and nothing felt pressured on this,” says Young, whose previous duets with artists like Vince Gill (“Sober Saturday Night”) and Cassadee Pope (“Think of You”) have ascended the charts. “Obviously, with the craziness of 2020, the one place I could go hole up in was my studio. And so that ended up turning into a lot of what this record is.”
Suddenly left with a blank calendar and an empty house, save for his dog Porter (named after country legend Porter Wagoner), Young decided to hunker down and finally finish the album fans were clamoring for—his follow-up to 2017’s critically-lauded Losing Sleep.
Chris Young; Photo credit: Jeff Johnson
The three-time CMA nominee ended up co-writing 13 of the project’s 14 tracks and co-producing it alongside DeStefano, Corey Crowder and Mark Coleman.
“I really do think I’ve put together a project that says a lot of different things. You’ve got your happy songs, your sad songs, your love songs, your breakup songs, your anthems. I feel like there’s a little bit of everything for someone on this record,” he concedes. “A lot of pieces of myself went into this album in a lot of very specific ways, whether it’s what I listened to, how I grew up, or relationships I’ve been through; and I think you can hear that.”
In the end, Young just wants fans to enjoy this new batch of songs as much as he enjoyed creating them. “It’s crazy how this album has come together over time,” he remarks. “I just hope everybody falls in love with it as much as I’m already in love with the thing that I made.”
Young previewed his fresh tracks, alongside catalog favorites, when he officially made his return to the road back in June, headlining back-to-back nights at California’s “Boots in the Park,” which saw the ACM-nominated vocalist perform to a sold-out crowd of more than 21,000 festival-goers. At the end of July, he was one of an elite group of artists selected to open for Garth Brooks at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium. Young got his performance in right before the show got canceled due to severe storms.
“I mean, obviously, that’s the one thing you could not replicate during the pandemic. There’s nothing like it,” Young says of the live experience. “There’s no way to explain the kind of high that a crowd experiences and that an act experiences having that back and forth, that give and take. There’s no substitution for it.”
Fans will get to immerse themselves in Young’s long-awaited new music this fall on the hitmaker’s Famous Friends Tour 2021. While Young claims he’s never taken his unique vocation for granted, necessarily, over the course of his 15-year career, he admits there’s a tangible reenergized excitement lingering in the air when he takes the stage these days. “It’s been fantastic being back out on the road again, playing music for people. And I’m just very lucky I get to do it. I’ve definitely missed it, and you can tell the crowds have missed it, too,” he adds. “You just have a different level of respect for it after it’s taken away. Not being able to do it for well over a year and now getting out there and playing for crowds of people just makes you want to hold on a little bit tighter.”
Chris Young; Photo credit: Jeff Johnson
In the end, Young just wants fans to enjoy this new batch of songs as much as he enjoyed creating them. “It’s crazy how this album has come together over time,” he remarks. “I just hope everybody falls in love with it as much as I’m already in love with the thing that I made.”
Young previewed his fresh tracks, alongside catalog favorites, when he officially made his return to the road back in June, headlining back-to-back nights at California’s “Boots in the Park,” which saw the ACM-nominated vocalist perform to a sold-out crowd of more than 21,000 festival-goers. At the end of July, he was one of an elite group of artists selected to open for Garth Brooks at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium. Young got his performance in right before the show got canceled due to severe storms.
Chris Young; Photo credit: Jeff Johnson
“I mean, obviously, that’s the one thing you could not replicate during the pandemic. There’s nothing like it,” Young says of the live experience. “There’s no way to explain the kind of high that a crowd experiences and that an act experiences having that back and forth, that give and take. There’s no substitution for it.”
Fans will get to immerse themselves in Young’s long-awaited new music this fall on the hitmaker’s Famous Friends Tour 2021. While Young claims he’s never taken his unique vocation for granted, necessarily, over the course of his 15-year career, he admits there’s a tangible reenergized excitement lingering in the air when he takes the stage these days. “It’s been fantastic being back out on the road again, playing music for people. And I’m just very lucky I get to do it. I’ve definitely missed it, and you can tell the crowds have missed it, too,” he adds. “You just have a different level of respect for it after it’s taken away. Not being able to do it for well over a year and now getting out there and playing for crowds of people just makes you want to hold on a little bit tighter.”
Chris Young; Photo credit: Jeff Johnson
It sounds like Young is simply continuing to do what he does best—holding tightly to a proven formula that’s made him one of Billboard’s top country artists of the past decade and holding tightly to where he came from, never losing sight of who he was raised to be. And along the way, he’s still picking up his “famous friends.”
“Chris is an incredible guy. He’s taken me under his wing as a new artist when he didn’t have to do that. That shows a lot about his character,” attests Tenpenny, who is set to provide support on Young’s fall tour, alongside newcomer Callista Clark. “He’s always taking care of his people and making sure the people around him are having a great time, while at the same time, still being a true country music legend.”
Maybe one day, someone will namecheck Chris Young in a song.
