Chris Young joins Apple Music’s Ty Bentli to discuss his 10th studio album, ‘I Didn’t Come Here To Leave.' In the in-depth conversation, Young reflects on how his father’s battle with cancer inspired one of the album’s most personal tracks, shares how he strikes a balance between heartfelt love songs and crowd-pleasing anthems, and talks about keeping his sound fresh after two decades of success. Our review of ‘I Didn't Come Here to Leave' is here.
Listen to the full episode anytime on-demand with an Apple Music subscription HERE.
Chris Young talks to Apple Music about his first number one ‘The Man I Want To Be”'as he readies the release of his 10th studio album I Didn’t Come Here To Leave
It took so long to get my first number one and then they just started coming. And it was like that one, The Man I Want to Be, which I would be remiss if I didn't talk about Brett James and unfortunately losing him, Nashville lost an amazing, amazing man. And it just continued from there with the songs. And then, every time you make a new album, it's like, “What's going to make this one different?” And I think this one has its own vitality, energy and being.
Chris Young tells Apple Music about kicking off his new album I Didn’t Come Here To Leave with the track ‘Some Around Here'
I think that definitely taps into that atmosphere and just a good time vibe. And it's a good way to kick the record off. So, that was a fun one to write and even more fun to sing. I want it, right out of the box, I want you having a good time listening to this record. And it goes a lot of places, obviously there's breakup songs, there's meaningful songs, there's love songs, there's all of those things in there. So it's nice to come out swinging with something fun.
Chris Young tells Apple Music why he titled his album I Didn’t Come Here To Leave
I liked the sentiment of this, like, “Hey, I've still got a bunch of stuff that I want to say even after, this is my 10th album.” So, I like the idea of that and also just that this is, it's something that you're going to crank and roll your windows down.
Chris Young tells Apple Music how the song ‘Good As Yours' came together
Trannie Anderson who's written a bunch of stuff for Lainey Wilson and is more of a piano player than I am, had this lick for the… She had that when she came in that day and I'm like, “Okay, literally stop. Play it on the piano so I can memorize it because that is great and that's exactly what we're writing. I don't know what we're writing it to.” I was like, “That's just such a cool riff.” And so then we ended up writing this song and it's definitely one of my favorites as well.
Chris Young tells Apple Music the story behind ‘I Hope It’s Okay'
I Hope It's Okay is really special to me because I wrote that with a couple of guys. But one of the guys is Austin Machado who, him and his wife…I’m actually the godfather to their child. And when they got married, I sang at the reception for them and all of my friend group was there, [his wife], specifically with her, she brought this idea to him. She was like, “This could be cool,” she goes, “I want to share this,” because that's what she went through as her dad wasn't there when she got married. But I just thought that was such an amazing thing for her to trust us with in a room to write that song.
Chris Young tells Apple Music how he transitions from a slow or sad song into an upbeat party song like he does on his album ‘I Didn’t Come Here To Leave'
I do feel like sometimes it's, when you have something that heavy, it's like, “Okay, now onto a drinking song.” I do that during my live show after I play Drowning, I just give it a beat. And everybody's sad and I'm…I actively say on the mic, sometimes I'll be like, “Well, now half the crowd is sad. Sorry.” But sad songs in country music go together like peanut butter and jelly, man. I think that one of my favorite things about country is you can have a sad song, you can have a fun song, you can have a love song. You could have a love song to tequila. You could have whatever you want about life as long as it resonates with people, it can come in whatever order you want. And I think that was why I put those two back to back was I Hope It's Okay is really heavy, very gravity, meaningful song. And then I was like, “We're going to get back to party mode now for just a second with [I Feel a Cold One Coming On].”
Chris Young tells Apple Music about his love song ’Til The Last One Dies' on his new album
Til the Last One Dies, obviously, it's the first single of the record but it's one of my favorite songs on here. And one of the few that I did not have a hand in writing, just found this song. And I'm so lucky that I found it before anybody else because I think it is just an incredible, incredible love song. I don't want to be greedy so, if you're getting married this year, not even 100% of everyone should use this as their wedding song, just 99% of people.
Chris Young tells Apple Music about the inspiration behind his song ‘Just Keep Living'
This is one, I wrote this about my dad's battle with cancer. And he beat it, kicked its ass and he is still hanging, he's had two heart attacks. This guy is just like, “That wall over there, I'm just going to walk through it.” Old country guy… Dale Earnhardt mustache. But love my dad and I actually had to call him because this was so personal. I was like, “Are you sure you're okay with me putting all this out there into the world?” And he said, “Yeah.”
Chris Young tells Apple Music about going out on his first ever holiday tour
I've never done a Christmas tour before so we're doing this different where it is an acoustic evening, it's me and two of my guys, my guitar player and my keyboard player, and I'm just going to sit there and I'm going to make what I affectionately refer to as a Christmas sandwich. There's going to be Christmas music at the beginning, Christmas music at the end and then, in the middle, I'm going to do some of the new stuff.
Chris Young tells Apple Music how his friend group is his escape from work
I guess for me is hanging with my friends. I've got a really close friend group and it's going to sound weird after I say that because it's 10 of us, and we're all in one little text thread. And that's the one that it'll go off and I'll be like, “Well, how did I miss 45 messages while I was asleep?” and it'll be somebody started sending memes to each other and it makes me laugh.
