It’s not an easy feat to carve out a solo career after being part of one of the biggest country duos of the last 20 years, but Brian Kelley (formerly half of Florida Georgia Line) is making it look effortless.
After the success of his debut album ‘Sunshine State Of Mind’, released in 2021, he’s now switching things up with a new musical direction. His new project, ‘Tennessee Truth’, is due for release later this spring
Ahead of his main stage performance at C2C earlier this month, I caught up with Brian to talk about his love for the UK, new single ‘Kiss My Boots’, how he’s grown as a songwriter, working with Flo Rida and 2024 plans.
I guess the first thing to say is – welcome back to the UK!
Thank you so much. Happy to be here. Fired up.
Last time we spoke was when you were over here in September. How did you find that trip?
Yeah, it feels like yesterday and it also doesn’t. It’s a weird time-warpy thing. But I told everybody, I told people I talked to, “I’m gonna come back, I’m gonna build this thing”. And true to my word… No, I’m just excited. When I think about 2015, my first C2C experience, I think about the fans. I think about the love and just how excited they were. I love that the UK has a love for country music and I made a deal with myself as I’m trying to stand on my own ground as a solo artist, that “Lord give me the time I’ll make the most of it”.
And I wanna go where people wanna have me. And so this is a product of that. The UK’s great, London’s great. Just great people, great food, great history. We were walking around last night, some of the old churches and Big Ben, and just looking up at this church that was built forever ago, and you’re like, “how the hell did they do this?!” And just a special place. So i think about the people, I think about the love.
I was going to ask if you’d had any time to explore on this trip and I know you’ll be in Glasgow and Belfast. Are you excited to be able to see a few more places this time?
Oh, fired up. I mean, I’m going to try to find some vintage stores, maybe some clothing stores. I don’t even know if this exists but I’m going to try to find some cowboy boots or a cowboy hat, maybe in Ireland or maybe here, just something that’s not American, that’s different. I love that craftsmanship, or those small shops with something unique that I can take back with me or gift to somebody. And then obviously I’m gonna be Yelping and Googling for the top foodie spots. Have to do that. Hit me up with a good list, I’m always looking!
Is there anything you’re looking forward to about coming back to C2C?
Yeah, everything. I loved doing it with FGL in a duo, I thought that was so great and so fun and I loved that. To be here to represent myself and people hear my voice and my songs, it’s different, and it’s so great too. I really love it and I really am enjoying it. Yeah, this is all part of building, working hard and building something that will last and something I can come back to every year, meeting and hanging with fans. I definitely think it’s a challenge too. It’s not like I have a massive built in fan base everywhere. That’s not my reality.
But I learned a lot of work habits from my dad. He worked his butt off from the time he was six on a paper route until really he was 79, 80. He’s 80 now but you can’t get him to sit down. He’s always wanting to fix something, do something, go pick up a check from his little warehouse that he owns. That’s instilled in me. So I love projects, I love building, and this is definitely a challenge. But I also feel like the gauge on having fans here has definitely been growing since being here in September. I check my socials and read comments and messages and there seems to have been a want for me here. I’m all about it. I’m like “hell yeah, let’s go man”. Life is all about experiences and challenges, so I’m excited to see where this can take me.
You’ve released quite a lot of new music since the last time we spoke. What’s the fan response to that been like so far?
Yeah, great. I feel like we’re in a great rhythm of releasing music. It took us a second to get there just with scheduling, being on the road, getting back with Dan my producer and his schedule. But I feel like we’re getting everything done in a sense to where we’re like, “boom, this is coming out”, six weeks later, “this is coming out”. So I love the rhythm that we’re in. I’m grateful for my whole team, everybody that has anything to do with what I’m trying to do. Just very very grateful for all the doors that have been opened for me to walk through and pour my heart out each night through songs, and shake hands and connect with people, and let them know I’m a real human, I’m a real person, I’m just a hard worker.
I also wanted to ask you about whether your approach to your music has changed. How do you feel your songwriting in particular has evolved?
You know, over this record cycle, I learned a lot about where I’m at in my career, about songwriting. I never thought I knew everything. I don’t wanna be that guy, I don’t wanna put myself in that place, ’cause I think being a student of songwriting and continuing to be a student is where it’s at. You know, a couple of things I learned, I just was really digging deep, even more so. Not even more so, I always have dug deep, but just speaking up and being patient. It’s like if you get on a song and you’ve got a couple of lines or even a full chorus written and you don’t love it, and you’re trying to write for yourself with other co-writers, being honest and saying, “hey, I know we put some work into this but I don’t know if I love it, are you guys cool if we talk about some other ideas?”
And maybe you’re there longer than you thought you’d be, but if you’re leaving with something that’s real and you love, it’s all about the work. And so for me if I… like, ‘Kiss My Boots’ for example, is a huge learning thing for me. It was written on a Friday about a year ago, and that song could almost have not been written. I didn’t show up to write that kind of song that day. I didn’t know I was gonna write that song. I knew how I’d been feeling, I knew what I had been through, so I’d been carrying around a lot of that for a long time, that’s why it was easy to write. But we had a guy on Zoom that was out of state and two guys in the room with me, and we had been kicking around ideas for a couple of hours.
The guy on Zoom had to go get ready for a show, I told the two guys in the room, “hey if y’all are down to stick around, it’s Friday, I wanna leave with something I love”, and then next thing you know, one little idea that Dylan Guthro says, “I got this idea, it’s just a line, it doesn’t have to be the title, ‘comes out in the whiskey’ or ‘comes out with the whiskey’. And I was like, “hmm, that’s cool, hadn’t heard that”. And I just started channelling what I’d been through and it was kind of easy after that. But if you don’t speak up, if you don’t push and if you’re not patient, you just never know what you’re gonna get.
And at the same time, the thing about songwriting is, some days you walk in with a great title or somebody’s got a title and you know exactly where to go and you write a song in an hour and a half. And you cut it and it’s out. That can happen. But when you’re just in the thick of it and you’re writing every single day and you’ve written all your good titles last week that are in your phone, you have to trust the process. You have to trust yourself. And it was just a really cool experience. I feel like I’ve upped my game through this recording process, this writing process. I’ve felt really, really, really embraced more than ever by the songwriting community for this record. I love them, I’m grateful for them, and they came in and we got after it together. Lot of long days and sometimes two or three songs a day. And it’s one of those things. Maybe the song that you wrote but you don’t wanna record but you still love as a songwriter, gets you to the next day, to where you write a song that you love for you.
It’s crazy how it works. I don’t know if there’s a method to the madness of songwriting but it’s just, when you’re really trying to channel something for you. And also some days you just write the best idea that’s in the room and you have to let go of thinking, the desire, “I have to have a song for me today”. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes the best idea in the room is something that’s a great idea, and you’re like, “I don’t know if I’m gonna sing that, but let’s write the hell out of it, let’s get somebody to record that”, and just use those talents.
I also wanted to ask you about working with Flo Rida on ‘Feels Right (I Love It)’ – how was that?
Amazing. What a blessing. That happened just through a friend that’s a manager, not even my manager, reached out and sent me the demo that wasn’t complete, just had the chorus and the music, and said “hey, Flo Rida wants to hop on this with you”. I was riding around the beach with my headphones in the first time I listened to it, and I go, “Damn!” I go, “if we do this right this could be global, this feels huge”. And I didn’t wanna overthink it and be like, “oh well that’s not really what my sound is right now, I’ve got too much stuff coming out”. I always wanna be led by creativity and inspiration. When I was writing my verse as I was listening to it there was verses in the track and I was like, “holy cow, I wanna do this”. And yeah, just grateful that they wanted to work with me. I’m a huge fan of him. He’s got so many hits, he’s a great guy, works his fricking butt off, and it just felt like an undeniable Flo Rida smash.
What does the rest of the year look like for you?
Yeah, we got some festivals this summer, and then I’m looking forward to putting together a little headline tour in the fall. Really excited about getting out and doing that and seeing what kind of memories we can make.
And are there any plans to come back to the UK after this trip?
I hope so! There better be. I can’t wait to tour this album over here.
Brian Kelley’s latest single, ‘Kiss My Boots’, is out now. His new album ‘Tennessee Truth’ is due for release on 10th May 2024.
