While things were beginning to break Brice's way behind the scenes, he was having a harder time in front of the microphone.
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Brice began placing songs with major-league artists, starting with a tune for the rock band Sister Hazel in 2006, which led to Jason Aldean recording "Not Every Man Lives" for his 2007 album Relentless and Garth Brooks cutting "More Than a Memory" for a bonus track on 2007's The Ultimate Hits. On the advice of Doug Johnson, Brice moved to Nashville, where Johnson would later sign the fledgling songwriter to a publishing contract as soon as he became an A&R man at Curb Records. He earned a scholarship to Clemson University, but once he suffered an arm injury he decided to devote himself to music. In addition to music, Brice played football. The performing bug bit him in high school, where he won the school's talent contest for three straight years, and he started to expand his horizons, spending time listening to rock & roll but settling on Garth Brooks as his idol. Next came the guitar, and by the age of ten he had started writing his own songs, partially under the influence of his father's favorite artists, the Oak Ridge Boys and Alabama.
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It also helped him stay on the top of the Country Airplay charts into the 2020s, as he racked up such number one hits as "Rumor," "One of Them Girls," and the Carly Pearce duet "I Hope You're Happy Now."Ī native of Sumter, South Carolina, Brice learned how to sing at church and he began playing piano when he was seven. The latter is what first brought him attention in Nashville - he penned songs for Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw, and his idol Brooks - but the former is what turned him into a star in the early years of the 2010s. He wasn't averse to good times - he had a country hit in 2013 called "Parking Lot Party" - but he specialized in heart-on-sleeve ballads like "A Woman Like You," "Hard to Love," "I Drive Your Truck," and "I Don't Dance," Top Ten country singles that showcased his supple, weathered voice and skilled song structure. Also raised on a combination of contemporary rock and post- Garth Brooks country, Brice gravitated toward craft, not bluster. Sure, his biggest hits are also his most sentimental (“A Woman Like You,” “I Drive Your Truck” and the record-breaking song he co-wrote for Garth Brooks, “More Than a Memory,” just to name a few), but he has always balanced the passionate with the playful and went to particularly great lengths on Dance to continue doing so.At the dawn of the 2010s, a time when mainstream country teemed with buff hunks singing party-hearty anthems, Lee Brice offered a subtler alternative. I loved it but thought, ‘Is this too weird?’ So I played it for Sara, and she said it was the sexiest thing she’d heard in a long time.”īoth melodically and lyrically, Brice continues to dodge being pigeonholed as a balladeer - and succeeds. “We wrote a verse, and then our brains just slipped into this old Nineties country chorus. “We heard this raunchy, blues-driven guitar tone and said, ‘Let’s write something that feels like that,'” Brice recalls. The writing buddies were inspired by a riff on an old blues record and ran with that idea to another musical ballpark. “Closer,” which Brice co-wrote with Jerrod Niemann and Jon Stone, is perhaps the best example of a successful marriage of two very different sounds. I love putting classic steel guitar with a classic banjo - all those sounds meshed with new sounds I created in my head.”
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“One thing I tried to do on this record is a lot of classic sounds, like on Bruno Mars’ record, but with a lot of hip sounds that he just created in his mind, or whatever it may have been. Brice also took sonic leaps in co-producing the album, recording the nostalgic love song, “Panama City” live with all musicians gathered around one piano, and playing almost every instrument himself - and whistling - on the frisky “Girls in Bikinis,” which also sees him channeling a little Mick Jagger, looping in a line from “Honky Tonk Women.” The project is, without a doubt, the singer’s most outside-of-the-box to date, as it infuses more rock, pop, soul and blues into his signature country sound. He adds that calling the whole album I Don’t Dance is also symbolic of his refusal to “dance in the box of Nashville.” But just for her, I’ll do it,” Brice says of the title track’s inspiration. And when she says, ‘Baby, let’s dance,’ it’s so intimidating. “Sara is an amazing dancer - it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.