Renowned Country artist Chris Young, celebrated for his chart-topping hits, multi-platinum accolades, and esteemed membership in the Grand Ole Opry, continues to assert his dominance in the realm of country music. With an impressive 5 billion on-demand streams, 13 career No. 1 singles, and 24 R.I.A.A. certified projects, Young’s illustrious career has earned him acclaim and recognition at prestigious award ceremonies like the ACM, AMA, CMA, and Grammy Awards.
Marking his 9th studio album, ‘Young Love & Saturday Nights‘, released under RCA Records Nashville on March 22nd, Young presents a captivating collection of 18 songs. With 15 tracks showcasing his songwriting expertise, Young demonstrates his versatility by serving as the sole producer on three songs, while collaborating with longtime creative partners Chris DeStefano and Corey Crowder as co-producers on others.
True to its title, ‘Young Love & Saturday Nights’ delves into themes of nostalgia and quintessential country music motifs. From new romance to heartbreak, small-town tales, lively evenings, and romantic encounters, the album resonates with familiar country themes cherished by Chris Young’s dedicated fanbase. In this project, Young remains steadfast in his signature sound, evoking the essence of classic country without conforming to contemporary industry trends or influences.
We were thrilled to catch up with him recently to talk all about it.
Thank you for your time today, Chris, we know what a busy man you are.
No, thank you for your time. I very much appreciate it.
Listen, before we dig into the new album – let’s talk about how great you look, your weight loss and your exercise journey, which you’ve been very public about. When did you realise you wanted to go on this journey and what goals did you set yourself?
It’s interesting. If you look at me right now I’m about 8 pounds heavier than I was because I threw my back out recently! (laughing) I’d got to the point where I really wanted to get back in the gym and get fit. I was lucky enough to meet a bunch of people that train NFL tight ends – they do it here in Nashville every year, Jeremy Holt runs the company.
I brought my friends along with me, some writers I work with too. I make Ty Graham go with me as well! (laughing) Haley, who’s on the podcast (The Quad) with me comes along too. All of us go now and it’s sort of become a big thing which has made it really fun to do, despite going to the gym not being fun, right?
Are you going to be able to keep up the regime out on tour?
It’ll actually be easier, it’s much easier than trying to promote a new album, I’ll tell you that! I flew to Australia for ten days, I’ve been out in California, then back to Nashville then back to California for three shows, which is where I threw my back out! I’ve been to New York and I’ve also recorded six songs in that time, which have nothing to do with the album, which no-one has heard yet and also recorded for HARDY’s Hixtape tribute to Joe Diffie and then came back to Nashville again, got on the bus and went to Texas and played two shows there!
The fitness thing will be easier to keep up on tour now that ‘Young Love and Saturday Nights’ is out and the promo is done, things should settle down a little.
Let’s touch on your inclusion on HARDY’s Hixtape Joe Diffie tribute with ‘In Another World.’ Was he a big influence on your sound and did you get to choose which song you wanted to be on?
Joe Diffie was a huge influence on me. One of my go-to records that I listen to all the time is his 16 track greatest hits although I do listen to all his albums too. I name checked him on my ‘Raised on Country’ song too – he was the very first person to comment when I put that song out and was very kind about it and me mentioning him.
I did not know HARDY was making the project and they reached out to me about being on ‘In Another World.’ I recorded it over at Julian King’s place, who is a long time engineer and producer with a rich history in Country music. We had the raw vocals of Joe Diffie’s on the track, which was really cool. A lot of the vocal digs that you’ll hear me do on there go all the way back to artists like Lefty Frizzell – Joe was one of those guys that did the same, he had an incredible range.
Shout out to HARDY for asking me to be on there, that was such a cool thing to do.
Your new album, ‘Young Love and Saturday Nights’ has such a warm, nostalgic feel to it. Was that your mission statement setting out to make a follow up to ‘Famous Friends’ or did the songs just emerge like that as you wrote and found them?
I would like to be able to tell you that, yes, I had this grand plan in my mind but I think it just organically ended up in that place. There’s songs like ‘What She Sees in Me’ on there too that people would expect me to record, you know, those big love songs, but once I cut the title track everything started to lean in towards that direction. Once I found that song, I could see which way we were going – there’s still going to be love songs because I don’t think I can make a record without a few love songs, people would be mad at me, but once we had ‘Young Love and Saturday Nights’ a definite direction began to emerge.
My favourite song on the album is ‘Down’ and I’m intrigued to know why you put that last in the sequencing at track 18 of 18.
That was the last song we recorded for the album and I thought it was a cool way to end the record, on a high with a brand new song. It was a deliberate choice. I can’t wait to play that song live – I think it’s going to be one of those songs that will be a crowd favourite and I don’t know whether we will play it at every show………..I was talking to somebody recently who was asking about how many new songs will go into the live show and my reply was ‘not many, unfortunately!’ I can’t really put a whole load of new songs into the set because then we would have to take out all of the songs that people have already made hits.
Have you now got a setlist headache then because there are songs on this album that you would like to play but including them would mean pushing out older songs or hits or classics?
You know, we haven’t gotten to the point yet because the album is so new but I expect I’ll get to the point where I think that I wish I’d have been able to release songs from this album as singles and play them at shows. It’s sort of up to everybody else now as to what songs get the biggest exposure. It was all up to me when I was making the record but now it’s out it’s up to all the people out there as to which songs get the biggest light on them.
Are there any of your older songs or hits that you’d be happy to rest for a bit but you know damn well that the fans wouldn’t accept it not being in the setlist?
No. I can’t lie. I’ve never been a victim of that mentality that I’ve seen some performers have in terms of not wanting to play big hits. I’m sure you’ve heard other artists say things like, ‘I’m so tired of playing………..’ I’ve never had that feeling. Anytime somebody wants to hear something that I’ve recorded….that’s amazing to me and I don’t get tired of that.
One of the reasons that I say that I don’t want to put too many new songs in to the setlist is that generally that’s not what fans come to shows to hear. Unless it was a special show where we were going to play the whole record and we’d advertised that in advance, right? One of the best shows that I’ve seen recently was when I took my mom to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Gardens in New York. He was at song four, sitting there playing the piano and he was joking about not being able to remember when he last wrote a new song and then he said, ‘Anyway, here’s ‘Piano Man.’ The whole place went wild. People weren’t there to hear Billy Joel play new songs – that was a reminder to me that when people buy a ticket to your shows they are coming to hear the songs they fell in love with.
Circling back round to HARDY again, one of my favourite songs on the album is ‘Fire’ which you wrote with him and which has a slightly different sound for you. I don’t necessarily see the two of you as natural bedfellows in terms of style. What was it like writing with him?
He’s one of the most fun people I’ve got the chance to write a song with recently. He’s a good dude and a great songwriter. It was fun to be in the room with him, all the harmonies that are on that track are all him. The song might be a little different, tonally, for me but it’s such a cool song that I couldn’t not put on the album.
Is there a song on the album that people like me aren’t talking to you enough about – one that you love that is going under the radar a little?
I didn’t even write this song but there’s just something about it to the point where I open my shows with it now, ‘Double Down.’ I love that song, that song’s so cool. Derek Wells played the guitar parts on that and it’s so amazing what he did on there.
I got to go and sing harmonies on the song as well and do the octave underneath it. I got to sing deeply underneath my own vocal which is a really cool thing to do. You can’t really sing in that register and make a song with it but you can add it to an existing vocal to make the song sound really cool.
Corey Crowder has built a really awesome custom intro to the shows which is a really fun to hear and then we play ‘Double Down.’
You are 9 albums in now and coming up on the 20th anniversary of your debut album in 2026 which is a notable and successful career in what is a tough industry. What keeps you fresh, centered and puts the fire inside of you to keep creating new music?
You know what…..as long as people want to hear new music from me and like the music that I am making I’ll keep doing it. There’s a caveat there though and I’ll say this – the internet sucks sometimes!! Social media sucks, right? People will be all ‘I hate this song’ which can get really exhausting. I had a conversation with a buddy of mine the other day who is one of my regular collaborators and he was telling me that somebody blew him up on the internet saying that they hated a particular song they had written and that song had gone double platinum!
Music is subjective. It is art. And as long as people still like my art and are buying tickets to come and see my show, even if other people don’t, I’m still gonna do it. I love my job. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do and I’ll keep doing it for the people who say, ‘That’s my favourite song.’ I don’t do it for the people who are negative – I do it for the people who are positive.
Chris Young’s new album ‘Young Love and Saturday Nights’ is out to buy and stream in all the usual places right now. Vote in our ultimate Chris Young poll.
