“It’s go to work with Dad day,” Chase Rice says sitting down at the American Songwriter studios to discuss his 2024 Fireside Sessions album. Jack, Rice’s black labrador, makes himself comfortable on the couch next to dad. “I got an event later so I didn’t have anybody to keep the dog,” Rice says, petting Jack.” I’m not going to put him in a kennel for 10 hours.”
That’s the type of honesty you get in a conversation with Rice when talking about his music and, well… just about anything these days. Rice admits that he once prioritized crowd-pleasing over authenticity, “I was chasing whatever was popular. I’ll be the first to admit that. Yeah, I wanted hits,” but he has come to learn that honesty is where it’s at.
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The proof of that is evident in Rice’s latest albums, including Fireside Sessions, a stripped-down performance of all the songs featured on his previous two albums, I Hate Cowboys and Go Down Singin.’ He credits his father’s influence for instilling these values, recalling how his dad, who died when Rice was just 22, made him earn his first guitar by performing for him and his mother.
On the project, Rice invites the album’s songwriters to join him for an unfiltered jam session. With songs like “You In ’85,” inspired by a concept from Lori McKenna about what life would have been like if his father were still alive and “Bench Seat,” written about a friend’s struggle with mental health, Rice dove deep into his vulnerabile side.
For the North Carolina native, the process wasn’t just about music—it was a way to wrap up a significant chapter of his life and career while embracing his vulnerability and writing music that reflects who he is, both as an artist and a human being.
American Songwriter: Tell us more about why you wanted to do this sort of unfiltered acoustic album (Fireside Sessions).
Chase Rice: The last two records were written on guitars. It was just all guitar. There’s no tracks, there’s no click track, there’s no nothing. It’s as raw as when I started 10 years ago or 12 years ago. So I wanted to go back and show how these songs were written. There was nothing fancy about it, me sitting right here singing into a phone, and then I’d send it to Oscar, and we built around that. A big part of the process of the two records was me and a guitar. We found that if we go in full band right away, it just didn’t feel right. So we’d always base it on me and a guitar, and the band would start joining in.
I just wanted to show how that was done. Then I had the idea for— my dad was on the cover of Cowboys, and I was on the cover Singin’—and I thought it’d be cool to put them together and wrap the whole thing up, both records, all acoustic, how they were written, and then put the picture of my dad and me together. I’d never seen a picture of my dad and me together as grown men. He died when I was younger, so that was a cool picture to see. So that picture inspired the idea to put them both together, and featuring the songwriters was something I wanted to do. I didn’t know how many of them would be down to come in and do it, and all of them but three did. And so yeah, it was just a cool way to wrap up that phase and the last two years of my career and my life. And now we’re moving on to something else. So it’s wrapped up, we’re done, and that was the way we wanted to end it.
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AS: What was some of the camaraderie like with those other songwriters on that album?
CR: It was great because both albums were written on retreats. Not many of the songs were written in Nashville. We were in Montana, Alabama, up near Boston. So yeah, that was easy. That was the easiest part because it’s just hanging out with your buddies at that point. And I’d spent a lot of time with them writing these records. So when they came in, that was simple.
AS: You have said these past two albums, I Hate Cowboys and Go Down Singin’, sort of reflect a new stage in your life and career. So, how do you feel like this album symbolizes that?
CR: Well, I mean, talking about both records, it started with my dad, and I never really talked about that, losing him at a younger age, but that was a big inspiration for me. I’m not shying away from writing that type of stuff anymore. And then, leading up to the very last song of the Singin’ record was Lori McKenna’s idea. She was going to sleep, and she had the idea for ‘You In ’85’, just kind of what that would look like with me being in ’85 with my dad or him being here now—two grown men just sitting there having a couple beers together. I never got to do that. So that was kind of the theme of both records and piecing it together. It was just easy to write because we never overthought it; we weren’t writing 50 songs for one album. Let’s cut 25 and put 11 out. It was just this song’s written. Cool. We’re putting it on.
AS: Did you feel like that was a natural progression, or was there an aha moment for you that sort of made you want to make that change?
CR: There was definitely a moment, and it never was a moment of, ‘I need to change what I’m doing.’ It was more of a moment of, ‘I kind of hit a wall in 2020, and I sat down on my couch at home and wrote my first song by myself in 10 years, which ended up being ‘If I Were Rock & Roll.’ Then I wrote another one called ‘Life Part Of Livin” by myself and ‘Bench Seat’ by myself. And it was just like, all right.
AS: So when you think back to that timeframe, what do you feel is the biggest difference between you before I Hate Cowboys compared to you now?
CR: I didn’t know who I was at all as a human, much less as an artist. I was chasing whatever was popular. I’ll be the first to admit that. Yeah, I wanted hits. But then I’m sitting there thinking about, I’m doing live shows, you’re thinking about how do I entertain this crowd? How do I get them as hyped as possible? How do we make it a party? As opposed to the most simple question I should have been asking myself: how do I make great songs? And I wasn’t asking that question to myself. Writing these songs all in guitar changes that; it’s like you’re not thinking about—Also, having all the time off in 2020, you’re living a regular life; you’re not sitting there looking at crowds. So, instead of thinking about that, I was thinking about how to make great songs. It was that simple.
AS: How do you feel the songwriting process has changed the most for you?
CR: Well, there are no tracks, first of all. You get the tracks in there, and you start thinking about different melodies, what sounds cool, what sounds like a hit? And to me, there are a lot of hits out there that are trash songs, including some of mine. But I was having fun; I was trying to figure it out. I just couldn’t until I took the time away and then simplified it, which was just for me; the formula was to put a guitar in your hand and start writing and write about real experiences. ‘Bench Seat’ was a real experience—my best buddy almost killed himself. Write that. And yeah, that just simplified the whole thing in my head. And that leading forward makes it even easier because you’re sitting there writing songs, and you’re not overthinking. We haven’t thought once in four years about how we— Maybe ‘Bad Day to Be a Cold Beer’—but how do we write a hit? I’m not thinking about that anymore. I just want to write great songs.
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AS: I want to talk about You In ’85 because I resonate with that with you because I lost my dad when I was 18, so I understand what that’s like. Can you share the story behind that song?
CR: Well, like I said, it was Lori’s (McKenna) idea. She had the concept and brought it to me the next morning, and I just started humming out the chorus right away. That’s what we did. The first job I ever had was bush hogging in the fields of Florida up into North Carolina on his Kubota tractor. So it was just like, Still cut rows on a tractor, drink beer after work. That’s what he did. He would get home from work, get a beer, get on the tractor, bush hog, whatever he had to get done around the house or around the farm. So yeah, not overthinking it. What would that look like? What did I do? How did I live my life? And that was it. That was just the truth of how I grew up.
AS: Has that loss influenced your songwriting, and has it helped you process that grief all these years later?
CR: For sure. I mean, he got me my first Martin guitar because I told him. He made me sit down on the couch or he was on the couch with my mom, I sat on the fireplace and he said, “You got to play five songs for me and your mom if you want this guitar.” So I did.
AS: What songs did you play? Do you remember?
CR: I played a McGraw song called Who Are They? I played Sweet Caroline or Not Sweet Caroline. Country Roads. I played a Paisley song, not doing the Paisley parts, but just chords. And I was looking at lyrics and looking at tabs and stuff like that while I was playing because I wasn’t good enough to memorize, I guess, at that time. I just learned to play guitar.
AS: Did that experience with your dad and playing those songs for him, has that sort of influenced your thought process now and how you’re looking at handling these future albums?
CR: Yeah, I wish I’d stuck to that 10 years ago, but that wasn’t what was happening, and that wasn’t a situation that I kind of fell into. The tracks became a thing, and that was fun looking back because I did have a good time doing that, but I wasn’t putting out anything that really mattered for the most part. I had a song called Jack Daniel’s and Jesus, Carolina Can that were real songs. But now, yeah, it’s as simple as sitting there playing it like I played to my mom and dad that day, just me and a guitar, and that’s definitely changed the way I’m writing songs.
AS: Are you enjoying being more vulnerable now, or do you find this more daunting this process?
CR: Oh, I love it. It’s easy. If I come in here and you’re asking me, “So Chase, tell us how you wrote Ready Set Roll,” which was one my first singles, I would lie and I would say something that I’m supposed to say. I don’t even know what I would talk about. Well, a girl and a truck riding the road.
AS: How did you write Cruise? Can I ask that?
CR: ‘Cruise’ happened fast, actually. That was quick. We were writing a slow song and Brian Kelly—It was 45 minutes, man—he literally started humming, “Baby, you make me wanna roll my …” We Wrote it in 45 minutes, and then we finished the slow song.
AS: What I love about these last two albums you’ve put out is you’re dropping some F-bombs, and country’s not really known for that, and you got the explicit tag, and I think that’s awesome. But why did you think that that was important to leave in? And did you worry what that response might be?
CR: I only worried before we wrote it cause I had the chorus written, and I worried about Lori McKenna. I’d never written with her. The first idea that I’m ever handing her has the F-bomb in it. So I’m like, ‘Is she going to want to write this?” I don’t know. And so we write that, our first song up in Boston, and she was all about it. She said, “No, that’s real.” And that assured me like, “Okay, we’re doing the right thing here.” But as soon as she was down to say it, I was definitely down to say it.
AS: What do you feel like is the most challenging aspect of songwriting if you’re finding it easier to dig into your vulnerabilities now?
CR: You just don’t want to screw it up. You always have that fear. But with the people I’m writing with, we got it pretty figured out right now. I mean, I had a song called ‘Circa 1943’ that’s going on the Eldora record next year—similar idea. I was like, ‘Man, I got this idea. I love the idea.’ You just have that little fear of, I don’t want to mess this up, but sit down, and it took us a while to talk through the whole concept of the song, which is about a couple who meets in World War II. How do you wrap it around to the ending, which is the most important part of the song? But you sit down, grind on it, and are pretty confident when you’re writing with guys like Wyatt [McGubbins] and Oscar [Charles] that you just get it. You get each other. You’re at a retreat in Colorado. Nobody’s got to go anywhere. We’re going to nail this thing down. It took us a bit. But yeah, it’s more just like, ‘All right guys, we know this is good. How do we not mess this thing up?’ And you get more confident as you go. Once you start with these particular writers and you write enough songs together, it’s like, ‘All right, we know what we’re doing. We’re going to lock this thing in.’
