Chase Rice blended his biggest hits into a medley when he took the stage at the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Festival on Saturday afternoon (September 24), reflecting on some of his best career milestones before he launches a new era (and tossing a few cans of beer to eager audience members in the process).
Rice delivered high-energy renditions of ”Ready Set Roll,” “Lonely If You Are,” “Eyes On You,” “Cruise” — the smash-hit that Rice co-wrote and Florida Georgia Line released in 2012 — “Drinkin’ Beer. Talkin’ God. Amen,” (sharing beers with the fans) and “Key West & Colorado,” his latest single to released earlier this year. He also gave fans a sneak peek of his next era with one of his newest, unreleased songs, “Way Down Yonder,” which he’s been teasing on his social media channels.
The singer-songwriter previously explained that his latest song tells the “story about a man trying to figure his life out – trying to figure out his past, trying to figure out his satiation with the breakup that he had or the woman that was in his life that he lost – and the trip that he took to help him along that journey.” Rice recalled of writing the song, inspired by a real-life road trip: We went out on Brian Kelley’s boat that day – it was me, him, John Byron, Blake Pendergrass, Corey Crowder and Hunter Phelps – and he told me that I’d actually posted about a trip I did from Key West to Colorado and he thought it’d be a cool title. Within less than a minute I twisted it to what the song turned into.”
“Key West & Colorado” is just the beginning of Rice’s next era of music. Catching up with iHeartRadio last month, Rice called the song “a perfect example of where this album's going.”
Rice’s upcoming project, which he aims to release late this year or early next year, was inspired by his dad, and in particular, a photo of him on a trip to Wyoming in the ‘80s. Rice’s late father wore a cowboy hat and held a beer in each hand. Earlier this year, Rice teamed up with Coors Banquet when he spoke with the company about the photo of his dad — holding Coors Banquet — that would soon become his album cover. The Colorado-brewed beer company aims to spread awareness for American firefighters through the program Protect Our Protectors, which gave Rice an opportunity to put on heavy firefighter gear and get an idea of what it’s like to battle a blaze.
“It’s just a whole new phase in my life that I'm so fired up to get out there,” Rice told iHeartRadio of his next album, which is set to get “really personal.” “If I'm gonna put my dad as the album cover, it's gonna be music that I'm proud of, and I think he would be proud of. …I especially think he'd listen to this album and say ‘OK, that's the son that I raised and the son that I know.’ It's very, very personal to me with these songs…and much more vulnerable than any other music I've made.”
In case you missed it, or just want to re-live all of the amazing performances, The CW will air a two-night television special on October 7th and October 8th from 8pm-10pm ET.