By Brian Ives
Chris Young has a lot on his mind: his new album, I’m Comin’ Over, has already topped the U.S. Country Album Charts and is nominated for Album of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards; the title track is a huge hit and has been nominated for Single of the Year at the ACMs. The album sees him collaborating on one track with a legend (Vince Gill) and on another with a contemporary (Cassadee Pope), and he has nothing but praise for both of those collaborators.
Outside of his own world, Young is also looking forward to a couple of movies that pit iconic superheroes against each other: Captain America: Civil War and Batman v. Superman. Over the course of our interview, we spoke about his music, as well as the films that he, and all comic book fans, are eagerly awaiting.
~
“I’m Comin’ Over” was the first and is the title track of the new album; the song seemed to explode as soon as it was released.
I just was really drawn to this song as a single from the get-go. When we started thinking about what will we use as the first single, this jumped out to everybody, and across the board, everybody loved this song. Even if they had other things that they loved too, this was the one that everybody really got onboard with, and I think we made the right decision.
Related: Chris Young on ‘I’m Comin’ Over’: ‘I Don’t Know If It Is a Breakup Song’
Which is good, because we named the tour “I’m Coming Over,” and the album’s called I’m Coming Over. You’d better not suck and fall on your face if you decided to name everything after the single.
Talk about working with Vince Gill on “Sober Saturday Night.”
Well, number one, I’m just glad he did it, ’cause I asked him, and I had no idea if he was gonna say yes or not.
Two, this song, I wrote it with the Warren Brothers, had such a great time with these guys writing this song, and we were actually writing something that morning that took almost all day, and probably no one will ever hear it. We wrote this song at the very end of the day in 45 minutes, and this is the one that everybody is like, “It’s great!”
So I asked Vince if he would come in and be a part of the record. He was like, “Yeah, sure, come on over to my house.” And I was like, “Okay, sweet!” And so we went over there, and he sang all the harmonies on it and obviously played the solo on it.
There’s so many guys you build up and you put ’em on a pedestal as an artist, and you’re like, “I have so much respect for this person. I think they’re great. I love who they are, I think, but I don’t really know ’em.” And then you get to know ’em, it’s this really odd moment of “God, are they gonna let me down?”
And he exceeded it. He’s just so humble and so talented and so nice, giving of his time. You talk about somebody that’s got a wall full of GRAMMY awards at his house, and he wanted to be a part of my record.
So it was just a really cool experience for me. I’m really big fan of his, and that made this song that much more special.
He’s an amazing guitar player.
He came in and said if he played something and I didn’t like it, that we didn’t have to keep it. At which point I looked at his wall of GRAMMY awards and was like, “I think we’re gonna keep whatever you play.”
But like I said, he’s such a humble guy. If you were around people that are that caliber of a musician, that’s not the response you’re gonna get 99 times out of a hundred. He’s special.
Talk about your duet with Cassadee Pope, “Think of You.”
Obviously, it’s really, really tough to find the right duet partner, because it’s gotta be the right person. Not just somebody who can sing the part, it’s gotta be somebody that you connect with, somebody that’s believable from the perspective of whatever the song says, the two of you singing it together.
I’d always loved her voice and was on an acoustic show with her, and she had sung probably a verse-chorus of something, and I was like, “This is so much fun, this crowd is great, I’m having a blast. I cannot wait for this to be over so I can get up, walk down there and ask her to be on this record.” And I’m just so glad she agreed to do it and said yes. It’s one of my favorite things on the record.
And you guys are touring together.
So obviously, we’ll be able to get out onstage and do that together, which is gonna be really fun. And not only fun for us, but fun for people that are coming to see the show. That’s giving them a little extra piece that they normally wouldn’t get.
Country Weekly recently called you the “hottest bachelor.” Do you worry that that takes away from people paying attention to your music?
If being lumped into “hottest bachelor” conversations bothered me, I would’ve started shooting it down a long time ago. And I think I would be kinda nuts, ’cause if you’re still a bachelor, why wouldn’t you wanna be in that category? Why would you not wanna be included if you’re still a bachelor?
I think that’s also the bi-product of some of the songs I cut, because I do a lot of love songs, and a lot of songs that could be deemed “sexy,” even with “I’m Coming Over,” which is not really a love song per se, but it is sexy. And I think that that’s a lot better than being on the Worst Dressed list or something. I’m gonna take it.
Have you ever been put on a Worst Dressed – or Best Dressed – list?
I’ve been on both. I like to think I end up on Best Dressed lists when I do my thing, which is pretty straight down the middle. I’m not the guy that’s gonna wear the red suit with flames on it, the white shirt and the white bow tie. I’m gonna be more the guy that’s like, “All right, just gimme a straight tux” and just look really classic on the red carpet. That seems to be more my lane.
You’ve studied jazz; talk about that.
I actually studied jazz and was a part of the NARAS GRAMMY jazz choir. But that partially plays into who I am.
I was classically trained. I really did train for a long time to be able to sing correctly. And then I totally mess it up by doing certain things that are just totally not how you’re supposed to sing necessarily, but it’s a popular style of music, so sometimes to get a certain vocal sound or tone or note, you kind of play around a little more than you should.
What jazz singers do you like?
You know, when it comes to artists that I love that did jazz, I’m obviously a big, big fan of Tony Bennett. I think everybody’s a fan of Sinatra, Mel Torme, and then I was a big Al Jarreau guy too.
Actually, when I auditioned [for Nashville Star], I did a vocal percussion drum scat intro into “Being in Love” by Al Jarreau, and that’s what got me into quite a few things, because people were just, “Oh, that’s so interesting and weird” and kind of a left-footed thing. And then there was an actual scat part later in the song that we added.
It just kind of showed off different ranges of jazz that I’d blended with other things. I think there’s definitely sometimes in some of my songs where I place lyrics that’s very influenced by that.
I hear you’re a comic book fan. Are you looking forward to the next Captain America movie?
Well, I assume that you’re talking about “Civil War.” Not that I know what that is! Or that I’m stoked that they finally struck a deal so Spider-man will be involved, but I have very, very high hopes.
Like I’ve admitted at this point, and like I’ve said in previous interviews, big comic book fan. And I love, love what they are doing with those properties right now, just really taking an approach where when you saw comic book movies in the past, when they weren’t these huge blockbusters, it was always a little campy and kind of, “All right, we’re gonna keep the Saturday morning cartoon vibe with live actors.”
And to me, that always had to go away, and it had to become something that was more character-driven. You look at a lot of stuff — and now I’m really nerding out — but you look at a lot of stuff like “X-Men” where when you start digging into those characters: like Magneto was a bad guy. He’s not the bad guy inherently because “I’m a bad guy”; he actually has motivation. And if you look at him from the right angle, he’s not a bad guy at all; he’s a guy that has motivation that’s counter to everyone else’s, and so he appears to be on this other side.
And I think that that’s more relatable, it’s more realistic, and I think once they started approaching the movies that way, they started reeling people in.
What about Batman V. Superman? Superman always seems harder to bring to the screen.
You look at somebody like Batman, he has no powers, so it’s easier to make him a character and make him relatable to people, and they understand his motivation and why he does what he does, even if it’s outlandish.
When you take a character like Superman, it’s incredibly hard, and if you look at over the years too, there’s [times] where, “Oh, my God, this is everybody’s favorite character,” and then “No, he got too powerful, and he’s not believable.”
But I think it’s walking that fine line. And I really hope they’re… I think they’re gonna do a good job with it. I really do. I got my fingers crossed; let me just leave it that way.
What about Suicide Squad?
See, I think the Suicide Squad movie’s actually gonna be easier, because those characters don’t necessarily have superpowers. It’s more of a dark look at making a team-up movie. Because they are bad guys, and there’s a government involvement thing going on with it, so I think it’s kinda cool. I actually think they’ll do really well with it.
Star Trek or Star Wars?
They’re two different properties. And first of all, just look at the fan bases and how polarity divided: people normally either like Star Trek or Star Wars, and they’re very serious. If they’re a really, really big fan of one of those franchises, they pick one. It’s not normally both. They might appreciate both, but they got one that they’re a favorite of.
So I don’t know that you can really compare the two, and I don’t know if you can even compare J.J. Abrams’ work on those two movies, because now you’re looking at basically hitting the reset button and using the same characters, as opposed to creating a brand new story that’s set in that universe. And those are two different things.