Last month saw the release of Chris Young’s epic and nostalgic ninth studio album Young Love & Saturday Nights. The album has reached much critical acclaim and is in fact an album that we personally see as being one of the big country albums of the year! Read our review here.

Co- produced by Chris Young and Chris DeStefano and Corey Crowder, the album delivers a collection of 18 tracks that hold no fillers and includes the singles Young Love & Saturday Nights and All Dogs Go To Heaven.

Young wrote the majority of the songs off of the album and well as producing three of the tracks.

We caught up with Chris to discuss the album and more!

Enjoy!

Hi – How are you? How has life been since Young Love and Saturday Night?

Exciting hahahaha! I told someone earlier in the past month I have barely been at home except to pack. I went to Australia which is about a 20 to 22 hour flight from Nashville. I was there for 9 days for 3 shows. Then we were back on a 22 hour flight to California and back to Nashville and then I went back to California to play 3 shows and threw my back out, had to sit down for the first three shows. Then flew back to Nashville, went from Nashville to New York, launched my album, guested on Hardy’s album and then went back to Nashville, got on the bus and went to Texas and now I am talking to everybody.

So a pretty lazy few weeks then?

Hahahahha yes!

Have you even had any rest?

Yes!!! Tomorrow I will actually have a full day off!

Young Love and Saturday Nights is giving me ‘one of the biggest country albums of the year’ vibes. I love it!

You know what? I hope you’re correct, you never know until it’s out there. Now It’s sort of, where I used to worry when I was younger and not even from an age perspective but just number of albums that I’ve released. This is my ninth album. I used to be hyper concerned about everything and like “oh my god, how many people like it? And how many don’t like it? How many people are going to listen to it?” I worry about that while I am making it now! Once it’s out in the world, people are going to like it or they aren’t, so why would you worry at that point? It’s out there and I am just happy that people have it!

Yes and that’s a lovely attitude to have! Did you achieve everything that you wanted to with the album? Were there particular goals that you set or did you go with the flow?

You know I think it’s interesting, I don’t even know if I set this as a goal but it is the most tracks that I’ve ever had on a record. I didn’t think that I would ever release an album that had 18 tracks on it in my lifetime so that was something that was really cool for me to be able to put that much new music out into the world. 18 tracks that I am really really proud of.

That was going to be one of my questions that it was a generous album tracks wise. Was it a case of you had to narrow it down to 18? Or did you have just enough?

I think it was sort of a thing of time that would have taken me to mix and master more stuff . I pretty much have an entire other record already done hahahaha

Oooh!

Haha! It’s weird for me because I have lived with all these for so many years and now they’re out there. It’s also exciting because no one else has heard them yet. This is all new for anyone that listens to my music and just being able to have it in the wild and it exist, I hope people love it!

I do and Don’t Call Me is a fast favourite of mine! That screams single, is it on the list of singles?

That is definitely on the short list. I am glad that you like that one, that was one of earlier songs that I wrote for this record. I am really proud of that one and is definitely something that is on the short list. I am also in that position of like I don’t know, I am waiting to hear, not running a poll on the internet level but see what sort of raises its hand of “hey we love this one”.

You have written the majority of the songs on this album, were there any that came really easily or were challenging?

I am a little weird in the way that I write songs. It’s normally really fast! ‘I’m Comin’ Over’ whilst an old song, I think I wrote in less than an hour with Josh and Corey. The stuff that I write normally takes between 1 hour and 2 hours and it’s normally that fast because we have gotten hold of a really good idea! That’s one of the things that’s the hardest part, going “ok, what hasn’t been said exactly this way?”. Outside of that, I have also gotten a chance to get hold of a couple of songs on this record that I didn’t write and that I think are absolutely incredible, including the title track ‘Young Love and Saturday Nights’. Even though I wasn’t a writer on that track, I immediately knew that I wanted that on my project.

You have written with Chris DeStefano a lot and I am quite the fan. How would you describe a typical writing session with him?

Oh my god, we have been writing together for a very long time compared to a lot of people who have cut and worked with him in Nashville. I actually drove him over to guitar centre to get a mini controller the very first time that me and him and Ashley Gorley wrote together. Ashley has about 60 plus number ones in country at this point. All three of us have written together many many times and CD (Chris DeStefano) is just one of those guys that he is such a renaissance man, that is the way I would describe him. He can play pretty much any instrument, he is the back up goalie for the predators our hockey team in Nashville, I don’t think a lot of people know that! He is the emergency goalie if they had to have one! He is a great dad, a great friend and great writer, great singer. He is just so multi- talented and he and I have become really really close friends over the years. Honestly, it’s easy! He and me think the same a lot! When I am like “hey I want to do this with a track” he is like “oh this?” And it’s perfect! Working with him is a breeze! I couldn’t say enough nice things.

Aww! I do love your work together and am loving the song Fire from this album which of course was also written with Hardy. Just listening to that song I thought “I bet that was a fun writing session”!

It really was and Hardy is another one of those people that you just want to be friends with haha! All of his stuff is so amazing! I was lucky enough that right after my album launched that he was launching his Hixtape Vol. 3: Difftape’ To Honor Country Legend Joe Diffie. He invited me to be on one of the tracks and I am a huge Joe Diffie fan too. I have sort of been really lucky in the people that I have got to have a chance to know! We all work really well together so it’s fun!

How do you decide on the bookends of an album because ‘Down’ is such a perfect closer!

Actually I put Down last, even though it’s one of my favourites because that was the last song that made the album. That was the latest date of creation for a song that we wrote for this project.

Tell us about producing the three songs that you produced, -how do you approach the production process?

It’s interesting because this is the very first album where anyone has asked me about production?

Really?

I have actually co-produced or produced solo everything since ‘I’m Comin’ Over’ ‘I’m Comin’ Over’ was the first project that I decided I was going to be a producer. It is one of those things for me, the way that I approach it is, I am sitting in my office right now and right underneath me is I don’t know how many guitars and how many microphones and how much studio gear haha. I love it! I’m not an engineer, I can do just enough to be dangerous (haha) I guess, but I love the process of producing and saying “I want to have a 64 strat..”. (Chris then said a whole bunch of production terms which I tried very hard to write down but honestly have no idea) . I love that! I don’t care if anyone thinks that’s cool or think I’m a nerd, I just love the process and have been again I guess, lucky to have learned under people that are incredible producers. Now it’s more about creating my own sound and knowing what I want and being able to manipulate things in a different way sometimes just to make something interesting.

Thank you!

You’re a member of the Opry now and have of course played there so many times. Can you still clearly remember your Opry Debut?

Oh yeah! I absolutely remember mainly because when you’re playing the Opry, they don’t tell you what to do! So they told me what room I was in and I went to the room and I tuned my guitar and I waited. I was like “I have never played the Opry before, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do right now?” Then all of a sudden this guy comes through and says “ you’ve got one song” and I’m like “till what?” And he goes “till you play”. I was like “ok, where do I go?” And he goes “the side of the stage?” And I’m like “which direction is that?” Hahahaha! I was so confused, I was like “I don’t know what I am supposed to do? I have never been here before”! They obviously had me back after that so that is all that mattered haha!

I was going to say, well you obviously did something right haha!

Will you be coming back to the UK any time soon? We missed you at The Long Road but of course totally understood!

Yeah, that crushed me not being able to come play! Obviously it was out of my control but my drummer is just too important to replace last minute’

Of course and like I said, we understood!

If I can go to Australia, I can definitely get to the UK because there’s a direct flight from Nashville to the UK

And much less hours

A lot less haha

Not as warm here but less hours on a flight

I’ll take it!

Thanks so much for talking today, it has been lovely!!

Thank you!

We only had ten minutes which goes by so fast so I did have more questions but I didn’t want to eat into someone else’s time slot. Chris was so kind with the fact my three year old came in and made a lot of distractions (his dad was meant to be playing with him haha) and explained if he was at home and not in the office then he would be facing the same thing with his dog!

I hope you found this interesting, I did my best with a three year old and actually a cat walking all over me haha!