Music Saved Me.

Welcome to Music Save Me.

I'm your host, Lynn Hoffman.

Music has the power to heal us, transform us, and carry us through our darkest moments.

For some artists, it's not just what they do, it's also what saved them.

And today I am so honored to sit down with the award winning multi platinum country music singer songwriter whose voice will melt you like Butta on a hot sunny day.

Chris Young is here with his tenth studio album, I Didn't come here to leave on Black River Entertainment.

Chris is entering a bold new chapter in his career.

But before the chart topping hits and the sold out shows, there was a young man from Tennessee who found his voice, his purpose, and his salvation in music.

And our conversation today, Chris opens up about the moments when music became more than a career choice, it became a lifeline.

This is Music Saved Me, and this is Chris Young.

Chris, Welcome to the show.

It is so great to have you here.

Happy to be on with you.

And I just loved the idea of what this entire show is.

Thank you, thank you.

And speaking of which, and I know you're in very high demand and you have very limited time, so I want to jump right in and ask you to take us all back to that first moment when you realized music was more than just something you enjoyed, that it was something that you needed in your life.

I don't know that my mom realized this, and I know you're asking me when I realized it, but I will say I probably learned the weirdest song as a kid, like to be a kid in the backseat of the car singing, and my mom was like, oh, he likes country music, which is digging up bones.

I was like, free, I think I don't know if that's the song that I should have started with.

What it was Randy Travis, and I do love Randy, so of course I would say for me personally, I remember driving home after having my first song out on an actual label, and I pulled over in somewhere on an old phone that's probably bricked or thrown away.

At this point, I had to pull over because my car had the thing that would actually scroll across for the first time, I finally had that, and I was pulling back into Murphis, where I'm from Nashville, and I saw my name, scroll across and pulled over, and it was just like, this is a moment, Like this is so cool.

I was so excited.

You know, it was one play on a radio station, but it was the fact that it happened and I got to just randomly hear my song, not because I asked somebody to play it, not because it you know, I played it.

It just happened, and it was like in the moment, it was so exciting, and I was like, I haven't made it, but this is a start.

It's so exciting.

I mean, were you waving to the cars going by, like that's me, this is me.

Did I roll my windows down and turn it up?

Yes?

I did?

Yes, of course you have to.

When you were growing up in Tennessee, before you became a big country music star, what was your relationship with music?

Was there random instruments around the house.

Was it something you saw on television?

Radio?

Oh?

I mean obviously not the random instruments around the house, unless you count where I really got my old school country music knowledge from, which would be my grandfather.

He had a music room, he played piano, played guitar.

Still does he's ninety three, You're still here with us?

So he was the guy that like set me down and played me forty five's, seventy eight's of like Marty Robbins and Lefty Frizelle and people like that.

As much as I draw from a knowledge base of country music, uh, he was definitely like highly influential into that and instilling just the love of country music into me.

But I would also say, you know, everybody always goes to church, but like he was actually a church christ elder at that church, I thought it was normal that there weren't any instruments because they didn't do instruments in backwards church christ churches.

And somebody would just stand up and be like, hey, we're singing this one, and they'd be like and then everybody would like break into harmony singing the song.

And I thought that was completely.

Normal, no normal.

And then I went to another church with a friend of mine, and I was like, why are there instruments?

What's happening?

What's going on?

But I think a lot of that stuff, you know, you can stack all of those up alongside each other.

And then just me falling in love with people that I heard on the radio, going oh man, I really wish I could do that one day.

And here you are all these hit songs, and is this your ninth studio album that you're about to release or tenth?

That's right, But who's counting?

Was that all?

Right?

Who's counting?

Counting one?

With the Black River?

This is number one?

I'm sorry, I was just confusing your nine billion downloads or streams globally with you know, it's just a little something like that.

Was there a specific time in your life, Chris that you can think of when you when you look back and say that music literally saved you a moment in crisis, struggle, maybe a darkness where songwriting and performing sort of pulled you through it.

Breakups, breakups, man.

I remember sitting in my car listen to It's Getting Better all the Time by Brooks and Dunn and just being like defeated because I'd just broken up with somebody and she was like not want to have anything to do with me.

Is Like.

I'd see her around and she would just like sort of look at me and be like which I don't know if she regrets that now or not, but I think she probably would.

But I just think that breakup songs are something that's truly intrinsic in country music.

You know, Keith Whitley had a whole album called Sad Songs and Waltzes, and I think that those even though it seems like it would be depressing to listen to a breakup song if you're going through a breakup, I think that is one of the things that helps you heal from one of those and you just need to be like, I just need to feel this moment for a second.

And when how many picks one of your songs for that, I think it's really really cool because it's like, hey, I shared a part of myself and then you related with that.

And that's what makes music so important, is that whether it's going on having a good time, talking about a breakup, talking about falling in love, talking about being in love with someone and how much they mean to you, I think all those things are really heavy, heavy feelings in life, and there's only certain moments where it's like I just want to hear that song that's going to make this deeply rooted in me as the person, and it's if it's something bad, it's going to get you past that moment eventually.

What song of yours would you prescribe to someone going through a moment like that.

You know, not to bring them something sad in relation to this, but I think I would be remiss if I didn't say, man, I want to be Uh, that song I was not one that I wrote, but it was one that that found me for whatever reason.

And you know, obviously we just lost Bred James, one of the most amazing songwriters that's, in my opinion, ever lived.

You know, I think country music lost to a legend there with him.

And uh that that song has helped not just me, but I know a lot of other people will come up and be like, hey, like guys, which guys don't like to talk about their feelings normally, they'll come up and be like, yeah, that one, that one got me.

That one resonated very A very small amount of words mean so much, I'm sure with guys, because you know, you don't get too goofy when you're talking about personal stuff, but but you write about a lot of it.

Do you ever use your music or writing the prom sess of writing a song and performing and or performing sort of as therapeutic for yourself in certain instances?

I think if you wanted a specific instance, and I don't want to take all of these to mean it all has to be sad.

I think sometimes you just want to go listen to a party song as well.

I don't want to.

I don't want to be the guy that's like, yeah, sometimes you get your heartbroke and you're like, I just want to hear a love song to tequila like that happens.

But I think for me, Drowning is another song that I had a hand in writing with my buddies Corey Crowder and Josh Hoague, And that song means volumes to me of just losing a friend way too soon when he was in his twenties, you know, and I, you know, now being much older and having had all the career that I've had even thus far.

It sort of gives you a weight and a gravity.

And I think that song, even when I wrote it, had gravity, but it still continues to just define a piece of life that I lived through and that a lot of other people lived through with the loss of a friend or a relative or son.

And I think everybody can relate to that at some point in their life.

What does the phrase music save me mean to you?

Personally?

Upfront before we started the show, you were telling me that you really like the theme of this show.

Can you elaborate a little.

Bit, Yeah, I think sort of an encapsulation of what I just said of you know, I think there's a lot of people that like their favorite song, whether it's happy, sad, something else, story, whatever it is.

They can listen to that and they can hear like if you're just sort of having a broken moment as a human, which I think we all do, whether we want to admit it or not, especially guys, but sometimes girls too.

It's you know, sometimes you're having a broken moment, you just don't want to look at it in the face, and you just sort of busy yourself with other things.

I think music can kind of fill that void if you don't have somebody that you want to talk to about it, or you don't want to talk about whatever you're dealing with.

I think that that is an incredibly powerful, powerful thing, and it's art.

So it's just interesting to me, and it's probably why I spent my entire life.

And that's then the direction I pointed myself in is music creating it?

Do you know, it's almost as if you found a way to just give back by making art.

The way you're talking when you come up against fans when you're out performing and touring.

What is it like when someone comes up to you and tells you that you saved them with your music.

I mean, it's worth a thousand times what they think it is.

Anybody saying that they love your music or they love a specific song.

My thing that I used to say when I first got started, and it still holds true, is if anybody tells me I made their favorite song.

If there's one person that hears something that I wrote and they're like, that's my favorite song, you have to think that means that song to them is worth more in their mind than anything else that they've ever heard.

And so if there's one person I think that does that, that's incredible.

I think everybody has their favorite song.

I've had people, you know, at the most recent show that I did, I didn't even see it because there was so much going on.

And they did a Laryer release at this festival that I played in Texas, and so you see all these lanterns and I'm just watching them go on, like that was so beautiful.

And then I see a clip layer on in the day where they were filming the crowd while I was singing my current single to the Last One Dies, and a guy gets down on one knee and ascer and got engaged.

And that song is not even Top twenty yet, So it was just so cool to see that reaction and somebody thought enough of a moment at my concert to do that.

And I've seen it happen before, but with the new song, I was just like, man, that's awesome.

How does it make you feel?

It makes you feel good, It makes you feel like you pick the right song, you.

Pick the right profession and the right song.

Well, you just said top twenty, so you don't you have like this thing where every song sort of has to You're an overachiever, let's face it.

I mean it's not like you're trying it.

Just you make these incredible songs with these incredible lyrics, like, for example, to the Last one, Guys, did he get down on one knee with the fake rose.

Or I don't know, because again I'm seeing like a clip of an edit of a video after the fact.

Yeah no, but just based on your lyrics, you know that it's such an incredible creative I don't know.

Visual you can see, I'll tell you it is.

I didn't write that song.

Really, that's one of the very few that's on this record that I didn't write, but I felt in love with it.

So I'm just glad other people were falling in love with the song and they dig through this album because there's a lot of meaningful stuff there is.

I am so fortunate.

I feel that I get to hear your album before everyone else.

And my husband came in and he's like, what is going on?

I had it cranked so loud, and he's a producer, so he's got good speakers.

The house is shaking.

I'm listening to like, pour some whiskey on it, which I don't know if we can say anything about that yet, but I just did because it's a really great song.

We're talking about your tenth studio album, I Didn't Come Here to Leave, which is another phenomenal song.

The title sounds pretty significant.

What does this album represent to you at this stage in your career.

It's funny because I obviously did the album title on purpose, but it doesn't mean anything other than I've got more to say, And I think that's the cool part.

I think there's stuff that I say on this record that I haven't said in the past.

There's things that I haven't touched on.

I haven't talked about, you know what.

My dad went through the cancer battle, which is one of the songs Just Keep Living like that specifically is his story being able to talk about that, Like I had to call him and be like, hey, old man, I don't want to put this out there if I'm not allowed to.

I want to make sure you're okay with it.

So it was a really meaningful song for me to write.

Also, of course some whiskey on it.

Sometimes that's what people have to do to get over things, to let music ill.

I said that earlier in a different format, But I think there's a lot that people will dig through on this record and find.

Yeah, I didn't come here to leave.

When I listened to the song, it sounded like you didn't want to leave the bar till four am because you weren't done.

But then I realized, like you just said, it's a metaphor for so much more in your career in life.

And that's all.

It sounds like I wrote it at nine pm and we wrote it at nine am.

Oh really, Yeah, that is.

Not easy to do when you're performing late at night.

So I don't want to let you go, but I do have to.

I want to quickly touch on your philanthropy because you do a lot of it.

You have the Chris Young Cafe at MTSU, you do scholarships for recording art students.

Why is it so important for you to give back with especially in music education?

Music education obviously is something that's near and dear to my heart, just because of what I do for a living, but even beyond that, like military things that I've done, you know, being able to donate to cancer charities that I've been able to donate to, you know, there's so much opportunity to do that, and I think you should give back if you had the ability to.

And I'm lucky to be in a position so the people that put me here are facilitating that, and I feel like it's something you should do as an artist and whatever level that you can, I'm just grateful.

But I'm able to do.

That's it feels really good, doesn't it.

In a way, it's sort of selfish, But I talk about this a lot with pretty much Aye who will listen to me talk.

But when you do have a platform, whatever it is, if it's a platform of any kind.

You should always make time to give back because it's so important.

Yeah, for sure, Chris Young.

I could talk to you for another hour because I have a bazillion other questions.

Congratulations on the new music, and thank you for coming on and sharing a bit of your story with all of us.

And I wish you nothing but incredible success to continue for you in your future and hopefully you'll come back again and see us absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Thanks Chris