Luckily, I have 4 or 5 songwriting buddies that I can call at that time. I mean, ‘I Don’t Dance’ was one of those that started after 10 p.m. “Sure, we have scheduled writes and stuff, but I actually love those old school moments where I just have to write a song right now. “When you get that feeling, you go with that feeling,” says Brice, who has taken eight radio singles to number one, including “A Woman Like You,” “Hard to Love” and “I Drive Your Truck.”. So, one must strike while the iron is hot.Īnd, for Brice, his iron always seems to get crazy hot after 10 pm. Timing has always been of essence for Brice within a career as a solo artist that essentially kicked off back in 2009 with the memory-inducing “Love Like Crazy.” But the former Clemson University football player knows that those hit streaks can be fleeting for even the best of songwriters. (Laughs.) Sometimes, you just have to let songs breathe for a while, and that one soaked into my ears and into my head for a year.” “The melody came to me finally and we got in there with Billy Montana and we got it done. “The song had no verses, but I would always catch myself going to that work tape and singing that chorus,” Brice continues.
“We had finished up a write on the farm and Brian Davis and I were sitting around talking and someone said ‘that’s a memory I don’t mess with’ and right then and there, we wrote a chorus,” Brice remembers. We ended up hitting that songwriting bullseye on so many days in a row…it was crazy.”Īnother certain hit born during one of those hot songwriting streaks for the new album is his current single “Memory I Don’t Mess With,” a heartfelt stinger of a song written by Brice alongside songwriters Brian Davis and Billy Montana.
We knew what we wanted and we knew how to get it. “We wrote ‘If You’ and ‘More Beer’ and ‘Good Ol’ Boys’ and ‘Save the Roses’ all in a matter of just a couple weeks,” Brice remembers of the songwriting streak that occurred just prior to and throughout the quarantine period of the continuing pandemic.
Indeed, much of Brice’s professional life has been driven by momentum, a sweet pocket of impending inspiration that was certainly in full affect during the creation of his upcoming, 15-track album Hey World, which is set for release November 20. “When my brain is clicking on all cylinders, I hit it. “I’d get in the groove, whether it was playing my guitar or writing a song, and I just couldn’t stop,” laughs Brice during an interview with American Songwriter that took place mere days before Brice was diagnosed with Covid-19 and was forced to pull out of his scheduled performance with “I Hope You’re Happy Now” duet partner Carly Pearce at the 54 th Annual CMA Awards Wednesday. No matter if it was a Sunday morning and it was time for church or if it was a Monday morning and it was time for school, he never was quite ready to put his guitar, or his pen, down. As a kid growing up in South Carolina, Lee Brice always seemed to be running late.