Chase Riceis opening up about his personal life — even the messy parts — with his new music.
On Friday at midnight, thecountry singersurprise-droppedThe Album: Part I,a seven-song project that gives fans a glimpse into who Rice really is.
Chase Rice.Courtesy Chase Rice
The partial album features romantic ballads like “Messy” and “Forever to Go,” which are two of Rice’s favorite songs on the record.
“‘Forever to Go'” tells such a great story. The melody is great and the message is awesome,” Rice says.“We were just kids, stealing a kiss and it feels like forever ago,”Rice sings in the song’s chorus. “But I love you more than yesterday / And we’ve still got forever to go.”
“That’s a love that everybody I think desires,” Rice he continues. “Then ‘Messy’ is kind of another part of that. It’s like, ‘Hey I get it. You’re messed up. I’m messed up. We’re all messed up. But I will love you through it.’ I think those two songs are really going to hit a lot of people.”
Rice didn’t have to go far to find the inspiration for his new project, though. The singer admits that every song on his record was written about his ex-girlfriend, a med school student whom he dated for a year and a half.
“All of the songs are about one girl,” Rice says. “I dated a girl for a year and a half and we broke up and I wrote songs about it. I’m not the first person to do that and I won’t be the last.”
Rice continues: “It’s tough s— to go through. It’s not fun, especially when you love somebody. But the coolest part about my job is that I get to tell my side of the story.”
His song “Everywhere,” a breakup bop, tells the story of his feelings perfectly following the end of their relationship. He sings: “How do I let you go when you’re in every single song, every single line, every single word, every single rhyme in the light girl you’re everywhere.”
“‘Everywhere’ kind of explains everything,” Rice says. “I took her to her firstRed Sox gameand then all of a sudden every Red Sox hat I see I’m like ‘God dang, I can’t get away from this girl. That happens to be the case with her and I think a lot of people go through that.”
Another song fans will recognize onThe Album: Part Iis Rice’s most recent single, “Lonely If You Are,” which he says is already “going crazy” when he plays it during live shows.
“To a t, that’s the kind of guy I am,” the former Nascar pit crew member says. “I’m not going to sit there and hang out with you and your girls all the time. I’m not going to sit there and ask what you’re doing or who you’re with. I don’t care. I’m not a jealous person. You do your thing and then when you’re done with it, hit me up and I’ll be there.”
“I have had great success so far, and to be completely honest, I think I have done that with sometimes average songs,” Rice says. “When I think aboutIgnite the Night, I think, ‘Damn, that could really have just been 10 songs.’ There was some trash on there that I wish I never put out, but that’s okay. You live and you learn.”
Now, Rice says, he has finally released a series of songs that truly tell his story.
“Every song is 100% me,” he says. “I’ve only got one shot to tell this story of mine and I want that to be with great songs.”
He admits that two songs on his new record give “a tip of the hat” to the type of music he previously produced: “Best Night Ever” and “In the Car,” which are both songs about specific moments spent with a girl he loves.
“Both of those songs have a little bit of what I used to do on them, but that’s okay,” Rice says. “What I used to do is still who I am.”
For Rice, coming into his identity also means changing his persona on social media, skewing away from his traditional posts about “drinking and partying.”
“I am still enjoying that life,” he says. “I love partying, but I want it to be about my songs.”
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Before recording this album, the country star says he had a conversation with his agent that made him change his mindset.
“My agent has been with me since day one and she was like, ‘I’m going to be real with you: If I looked at your Instagram I wouldn’t even know you were a musician,” he says. “That was an eye-opening thing for me to hear because that is what I love to do most. For some reason, I always had this mindset that I should show my personal life there and not make it about music, but now I’m like, I have a million people who want to hear what I have to say and I am not telling them the story that I want them to hear.”
The Album: Part Irelease comes days before Rice is set to appear on ABC’s hit reality show,The Bachelor.During Monday night’s episode, Rice will make a guest appearance as one of the show’s performers. However, his appearance on the show seems to cause a bit of drama, as it wasrevealed in the episode’s previewthat Rice used to dateVictoria Fuller, the contestant whoPeter Weberbrings on the date to his show.
“Wait, what?” Weber says before she gets up, walks away and tearfully says, “I can’t do this.”
Chase Rice.John Shearer/WireImage
The episode comes months afterRice teased hisBachelorcameo, revealing to PEOPLE in November that he “was involved more than I wanted to be involved with.”
Speaking with PEOPLE on the red carpet at theCMA Awardsin Nashville, the musician revealed that he said yes to performing a few songs on season 24 to “promote” his music. Rice then went on to not only tease his interaction with Fuller and Weber, but also revealed that the surprise album would be dropping near the airing ofThe Bachelorepisode.
“I was involved, and I was involved more than I wanted to be involved with. That will be coming out I’m sure in January,” said Rice, “and I will be dropping some new music in January whatever day that airs.”
The Album: Part Iis available for streaming now.
source: people.com
