Lee Brice’s fourth studio album may just be his most personal and definitely more soulful sounding record yet.
The country star's new record follows his three Gold certified albums Love Like Crazy (2010), Hard2Love (2012), and I Don't Dance (2014), and features 15 new songs including his latest single “Boy."
In an interview with iHeartRadio, Brice called his new self-titled album very “introspective” and said he “stayed away from tricks and computers” when recording it.
“I wanted it to be guys playing guitars, and bass, and drums, and me singing, and sticking to that through the process,” he explained. “It made it more difficult to be able to make a record that's raw, but still stand up sonically to all the stuff that's out there. But it was fun. And I think we did it.”
Brice said the album personifies who he is.
“I've always tried to be true to myself no matter what, and looking back now, I mean, I was finding myself. I was finding myself as a guy, and then now as a man, a daddy; who I am, lyrically, in the songs and content, but also musically. I've loved all kinds of music my whole life, so I've kind of been finding what I wanted to have as one unit, one cohesive record,” he said.
“This record is very introspective into my own self, my own battles, where I'm at in my own life from being a daddy to being an artist.”
Brice discovered he had developed a polyp on his vocal cord, which was eventually treated with surgery. As a result, singing became a little more difficult, and in fact, he said while performing live "for the last five years it was a chore to get through a set.”
But while recording this album, this polyp forced him to sing harder. “I had to sing kind of more soulful and bluesy, just to get anything out.
“From that came these songs that I was writing that were extra soulful. That kind of put me on the path of this raw, soulful record. 'Rumor,' is one of those songs. I was writing this song just about small town, kind of where I'm from just about, like every small town, how a rumour gets around like that. You know, whatever happens Saturday night, everybody is talking about on Sunday morning.”
The album’s most personal song, Brice said, is “Songs In The Kitchen.”
He explained it’s “a literal snapshot of myself, my brother, my daddy and mamma, growing up every Sunday morning at our house, and in the car on the way to church; this is what my life looked like. A perfect snapshot.
“And then the choruses are talking about where I'm at now. I'm on the stage, I'm in the lights, I'm in front of the cameras, and kind of that battle between, and what it all means to me. And getting back to, 'Songs In The Kitchen,' and not just songs to put out there.”
Original article by Nicole Mastrogiannis at iHeartRadio