Eric Paslay is certainly no stranger to UK audiences – whether that’s as a songwriter or a performer.
As well as writing hits for the likes of Rascal Flatts, Jake Owen and Eli Young Band, he’s been winning over fans on this side of the pond with his distinctive vocals, clever lyrics and warm, engaging stage presence. He’s also released three full length albums of his own as well as his latest project, the six-track EP ‘Perfect Stranger’, which came out earlier this month.
On his recent visit to London as part of his Perfect Stranger Tour, I caught up with Eric to chat about the EP, his love for UK audiences, the song he’s proudest of from his career and what’s coming up next for him.
Welcome back to the UK!
Thank you.
I feel like you’re basically an honorary Brit at this point…
I think this is like my eighth tour. I’m just gonna say it’s my eighth. It could be my tenth, I don’t know. I love it here.
The last time that we spoke was back in 2020 before ‘Nice Guy’ came out – what’s been happening for you since then?
I’m just obviously always writing music and everything. Put out ‘Nice Guy’, put out a project called ‘Even If Breaks Your Barefoot Friday Night’ where I put out all the hits I’ve had as an artist and all the hits I’ve written as a writer, and kind of reimagined those and had fun doing that. And just put out an EP called ‘Perfect Stranger’. And that’s just from… I make so much great music and record with such talented friends of mine, I’m just putting out a song every six weeks or so or just whenever I feel like it. We’re just like, “here’s a song”. And feed the fans and if you like this song here’s a bunch more to listen to. So I figured, it’s just kind of, why not? I’m kind of in a part of my career where I’m just able to do that and allowed to so I’m just doing it as often as I can.
How’s the tour been going?
It’s good. The crowds are awesome here. It’s crazy. And it feeds the musical soul to come play shows for people who listen really well and play new music. It’s translating really good and everybody’s digging it. Yeah, beautiful cobblestone streets and I love it.
Are there any songs you’re particularly enjoying playing live at the moment?
I mean, all of ’em right now ’cause everybody’s listening [laughs]. Over the years it’s building a show where it’s like, “this might be a new one, this might be a hit, this might be a new one” and the show feels really good. I mean, over the years they all earn their certain feather in your hat that you’re like, “I like wearing this one, let’s try this one on tonight”. And I’ve been changing up the sets every night – got a bunch of songs to make sure that if people come to more than one show they don’t get the exact same show.
You’ve mentioned the ‘Perfect Stranger’ EP which came out earlier this month. What’s the reaction to that been like so far?
I think it’s good. You know, everybody, really online with TikTok and Instagram and all that is a lot of the reaction that I get to see, everybody loves it. I always love putting out a new song. We just put out a song called ‘Everything With You’ and that was actually, the recording and the vocal and everything, we wrote the song and recorded that all in one day. Like that’s how talented – Lindsay Rimes was the guy that I wrote with and he produced it, just how talented Nashville can be. Like, “this happens in one day? This happens in one day a lot”.
And it’s a pretty cool song. You’re not gonna capture that song every day. But it ended up being quite amazing, and I just love to know that fans get to hear it. There’s a lot of records made in Nashville that a label’ll put on a shelf. And it’s kind of just how to suck life out of all good things, is not to put out something when it’s great. And I just like having the freedom to be able to do that now.
Was it quite difficult to narrow it down to just those six songs for the EP, or were you always quite clear those were the ones you wanted to include?
No, it kind of just wrote itself. It was like, “what about this song and this song and this song?” and then, “well wait, what about this song? Hey let’s put that out, why not? What about this song? What the heck, how has this not come out yet?!” Like ‘Everything With You’ I wrote with Lindsay, maybe a year ago, and it just seemed right to do that. And then the very last song on there is called ‘Lost In A Song’ and that was actually from the ‘Nice Guy’ project. That song just didn’t feel right on that album.
And it’s kind of just insider, music behind the curtain, person of the thought of standing on the side of the stage. And just that amazing space that singers and musicians can get lost in, along with fans, when you’re lost in a song. Just kind of that cinematic world of that and the thoughts of it all, that every career has a rise and little ups and down and ‘faded suit sitting on the fifth row gives a wink as he starts to smile, ’cause it wasn’t very long ago he was the chosen child’. Everything has its season. And the fun this is anything’s possible always right now. I mean, seasons come and go and it’s fun to be in a cool season where I get to choose the shows I play, and it’s really cool.
I also wanted to ask you about the way the EP is structured. When I listened to it it almost felt like there’s this love story narrative going through it and then it turns to that love of music at the end. Was that something you were thinking about when you put it together?
Absolutely. I mean, I’m a fan of love songs and I look through my career of all the songs we chose when I was on a major record label, and they’re all hits and they’re all great, and I’m like, “where the hell are the love songs?!” Like that’s all I write are love songs. And then we put out songs on the radio that aren’t love songs. It was like, “what in the heck?!” So I just made a point of that.
And also actually ‘Best Friends’, I sing that with my wife Natalie. So she’s on that. But yeah, I like love songs. I mean heartbreak songs are great too, and reminds you that love is good, y’know? If you find the bad one, find the good one, hopefully. But yeah, it’s just being aware and doing it, y’know?
This is your first project of new music since ‘Nice Guy’. How do you feel your approach has evolved since then?
Extremely… I don’t overthink it. It’s like, “this is a great song, here you go”. And I’m a fan of albums where it all comes together cohesively, but honestly right now people don’t listen that way hardly ever. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t listen that way – I honestly wish people would but that’s not how we listen to it. Y’all probably do it more here. I think Europe probably listens more that way. But the US doesn’t. It’s like, ‘next song, next song, next song’.
Which is cool and you’ve got everything so let’s go Dua Lipa to George Strait to Ed Sheeran to Eric Paslay to Taylor Swift to Morgan Wallen. It’s just like, ‘music is music and I love that, I like it so let’s play it’. And then Nelly and then who knows what is on a playlist, and I love that. Music is music, love what you like, and honestly don’t hate on something that you don’t. It’s like, whatever. If someone loves it then don’t listen to it, let them listen to it.
But honestly, yeah, to answer your question, it’s a very freeing place that I’m at. You go, “let’s just put this out”. You never know. A song has forever to be heard but it has to exist in the universe before people can maybe find it. Honestly we’re in a world where a song finds you. You got a bunch of songs floating around, let’s see where they land.
Was there anything you learned making this EP that you’ll take forward into future projects?
I mean, this project, ’cause I own it, the guys and gals that I’ve made it with, I’m sharing parts of the master with. Because if you’re a writer I think you should own a part of the masters. Because as a songwriter, streaming wise it’s not lucrative at all. And I don’t do it for the money but it is an effect of what we do, and I wanna make sure the cause gets funded. A lot of people are like, “chase the effect” but they should be looking at the cause. And just looking forward to the future of making sure that those who write the script to the soundtrack of your life gets paid. But also making sure labels do that. They’re gonna drown me in a river for saying that. But just kind of the way I’m doing the project, I’m not calling anybody out, ’cause it’s do your business the way you want, but just sharing masters with producers that I go with and if a phenomenon occurs then we’re all good. That’s plenty for me. It’s plenty for them. We all have enough.
We’ve mentioned ‘Even If It Breaks Your Barefoot Friday Night’. How was it getting to revisit those songs?
It was honestly… Mitch Furr is who I worked on it with, and Mitch produced ‘Wild Hearts’ that Keith Urban put out. And props to Keith Urban, because he was like, “who did this? Who produced this?” And we were like, “Mitch Furr” and he was like, “Mitch hasn’t had huge credits as a big producer in Nashville”. I mean, he’s like really young, and he’s so talented. And props to Keith because he’s a co-producer with Keith, because Keith went in and did his thing on it. They made it, and I love Keith Urban for that.
And I went in with this project with Mitch, and it was like all these songs I’ve played a lot of times. I know the song and I play it a certain way and I’m like, “here, reimagine it with this kind of lens on it, like what if we kind of went this way?” And Mitch did it. I just love his way of producing and he’s incredible. I hope someday I can’t afford him ’cause he’s so big.
Is there a song you’re particularly proud of from your career – either one you’ve recorded yourself or that you’ve written for another artist?
I mean anything that attaches to someone’s memories is always awesome. To know that someone made a memory with something you wrote, to go, “hopefully this brings you to a good place whenever it comes on”. I don’t know. A song that I love what the lyric says and how it applies is a song called ‘Less Than Whole’ that I wrote with Big Kenny from Big & Rich years ago. It was never like a radio single or anything like that but it just kind of… the narrative of that song has always stayed true to most people’s hearts. And everybody I think wants to be not just less than whole, I want them to be filled to the top and overflowing with good stuff. But I think the world needs more of that. So I love that song.
It’s almost Christmas, so have you got any particular favourite Christmas traditions?
Christmas traditions… I take time off [laughs]. I don’t know. We’ve started doing family traditions where we travel somewhere together. It’s like, “alright, nobody hosts, let’s just go hang out somewhere and have a good time”. So we’ve started doing that more with family memories and all that. We’ll be in Georgia this year with family. But that’s become one of the traditions. Over the years they change as you get older. We’re not back in my hometown every Christmas now ’cause my parents live where we are in Nashville, but it’s kind of that.
Got a little five-year-old so the traditions are starting to reform around her. She did tell me the other day when we went to see Santa, she was like, “that guy’s just dressed up as Santa” and I’m like, “I think that guy talks to Santa. He might be a messenger. Talk loudly when you tell him what you want!”
What does 2024 look like for you so far?
I mean, already a bunch. It’s kind of, I have a lot of private shows that I play right now, so people are like, “you’re not playing shows” and I’m like “I just played 20 last month!” So it’s a cool phase where it’s like friends and fans over the years, I’m getting called to do really cool events for them and I’m very grateful as a professional singer for doing that.
But my goal is always to come here. I keep throwing this out – I wanna come back here every six months, at least. You give people just enough reset to go, “what else is going on?” Alright, here’s another show. Just come back and let the fans know I love ’em and I wanna be here and grow this together. I love that country music’s growing over here so much. It’s just really cool. I ran into Larry Fleet – I wrote ‘Stack Of Records’ with him, the title track of his album. And seeing Morgan [Wallen] and just everyone coming over here, Kip Moore, it’s awesome to see that growing and just feel the love from the UK everywhere we’re going. It’s just fun to see all that and get to make music for people wherever they’re from.
I was going to finish by asking about your plans to come back here but I think you’ve already answered that one!
Always. I will always come back.
Eric Paslay’s latest EP, ‘Perfect Stranger’, is out now.
