This Week’s Backstage Country Host: Lee Brice
The celebrity co-host on Backstage Country from March 10-14 is none other than Lee Brice! For an entire week, Brice will join Elaina Smith to share stories behind his music and give listeners an inside look at his writing process.
Writing With Friends
Smith asked Brice about “Hard to Love” and whether he knew right away that it would be the title track of the album. Brice confirmed, sharing that he was surrounded by a group of close friends—people who knew him well, whom he loved, and who were talented songwriters. He recalled that they went to Rosemary Beach, where they split into two groups, all focused on writing for his record.
He also admitted that “Hard to Love” is the song he wished he had written. He chuckled, “I brought them there to write for my record!” He added, “And to this day, it’s another one of the songs we talked about. Girls love it because they know how true it is, and so do guys. So, we’re trying to appeal to all the sexes out there.”
Lee Brice on Writing a Song on a Live Platform
Smith recalled when she saw Brice write “Rumor” on Periscope and asked if he would ever write a song on a live platform again. Brice said he would and shared the backstory. “We were down on a retreat. My late great friend Kyle Jacobs. We wrote so many songs together. So many special moments. I had this title ‘Rumor,’ and I honestly was being funny with that melody. And he said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘Oh, just being funny.’ He’s like, ‘That’s not funny.’ So, then we immediately, boom, boom, boom, boom and wrote a chorus in about 10 minutes.”
He added, “Then what me and Kyle did was jumped up, got our laptops and went out to the pool. Made us a whiskey drink and proceeded to write the verses. People were like, ‘You need to get on social media!’ I said, ‘Well, here, watch this.’ And I just got over there [at Periscope]. So here we go, we’re gonna write this song.” Brice turned to Smith and said, “You’re right. I almost forgot about that.”
Smith, playfully added, “Yeah, for the kids out there, it was the live streaming platform Periscope—before Instagram or Facebook Live.”
Follow Lee Brice on Facebook or Instagram, and you might catch him writing a song live!
