CitUK sits down with Eric Paslay
The UK was gearing up for an acoustic set from Eric Paslay as part of the Introducing Nashville writers round with Tenille Townes and Abby Anderson to start this years C2C Festival before the weekends cancellation. 2 months on and the UK is still in lockdown, this week Paslay should have been performing in Country in the UK's home town of Guildford as part of his supporting role for The Shires UK tour - this is now penned in for October/ November. Despite being at home in Nashville, Paslay has pressed ahead with his schedule to release new music and today (Friday 8th May) he has released the first track, Heartbeak Higher, from his latest project. His first new track since 2018's Young Forever features guest vocals from one of Paslay's co-writers Sarah Buxton. Instead of sitting down in Guildford this week, we chatted with Paslay over the phone to discuss the new track, his shortened trip to Europe and a unique songwriting achievement he received at the end of 2019.
The new track, Heartbeat Higher, is set to be released on Friday (8th May). It’s quite an upbeat song with a positive vibe, do you think this song can lift people’s spirits?
I sure hope so. It’s a fun song and a great love song. I got to share the mic with Sarah Buxton on it, she’s a co-writer. Hopefully everyone will get a little excitement from it and give them something to look forward to the next time we all get to hang out together at live shows and we can sing it together.
You wrote the song with Zack Crowell and Sarah Buxton, did it take much persuading to get Sarah to feature on the song or was the female vocal always written for her?
She’s always been singing on it from the day we wrote it she would sing her part and I would sing mine. It’s probably even more of a reason I love the song so much as she’s such a good singer and I feel like our voices just sound so good together. Ever since we wrote it, she’s been the one singing on it and she is so good. When anyone hears it, they always ask who the vocal is as she’s just so good. Her husband is a great guitar player and is actually playing the guitar on this record. It was really cool to have both of them there in the studio as they are such great friends of me and my wife and I love them both to death. I’m so happy that the first song from this record has her and her husband featuring on it.
You filmed the video in Stockholm, what was it like filming there?
It was beautiful. We woke up early in Stockholm and got some amazing shots. It was my very first time being there through the streets for the first time in awe of how beautiful the city was. It’s always great to get to go to a new town and walk around it, soak up the vibes and get to se the people. It was a whole lot of fun getting to tour over there and I’m glad that we decided to wake up and not be lazy as we got some really cool footage for the song.
Was it always your intention to shoot the video there or more of a spontaneous decision?
It was my goal as we were in a beautiful city. Timothy who filmed it and edited it is just so good, so we sort of had a plan to film there as we thought it would be good for the song. With the quarantine time we got to use a lot more studio footage than we would have liked and it actually turned out even better than I thought because with Sarah on the track we didn’t need to be in each others world right now whilst quarantine and it wouldn’t be safe to get a whole crew together right now. I think it turned out amazing just having the mixture of those shots from Stockholm and shots in the studio together.
You’ve already performed the song during recent online sessions, with this being your first new release in a while, how has the reaction to it been?
It’s not a brand new song as I’ve been playing it on the road a little bit. I don’t think any song is ever brand new by the time it comes out but the reaction of when we announced it as the first song was great. It’s great to see the reactions and the exciting exclamation marks from fans in posts. I’m just excited to have new music coming out and knowing that this is not just one song and we have a whole project we will be rolling out over the summer. I cannot wait for people to hear this song and the rest of the project
With this release announced, are fans already asking for more even though this song isn’t out till Friday?
Oh yeah, we won’t make you wait too long, although it always feels longer than it is. I’ve already made fans wait long enough that hopefully having a whole album roll out over a few months will be enough music. Knowing that every three to four weeks we have a new song coming out is really exciting.
It’s quite a unique time to be releasing new music and performing for fans. Is it a bit odd knowing that people can only watch through phone and computer screens?
I think it’s odd for everybody, it’s like a whole new world. Hopefully after all the pandemic is done we will be able to show up live in person. Even though I can’t fly over to the UK at the minute and play for you all there, it’s great to still be able to see each other online, get together, talk and play some music to still be connected. It’s incredible just how connected we can be even though we are thousands of miles apart or to your next door name who is quarantine. I’m just trying to see it as the glass half full with all that is happening but still very much looking forward to being there in person and playing shows with everybody knowing we are all healthy and safe to be in the same room together.
You’ve built an incredible connection with fans across the UK, having released a Live in Glasgow album and now allowing Chris Country to have the exclusive first play of the new track. What is it about the fans here that has made that click with you?
I don’t know, I am thrilled though. I definitely have a lot of influence of European artists, so I don’t know if that’s it but who knows. From U2, Coldplay, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel I could go on and on with the artists I like there, but we are good at reminding each other about what we did. The Stones had to remind us about the blues (and did a good job), Adele reminded us about what Aretha Franklin did, it’s just about making sure that you realise this is great music and there is so many talented people everywhere and we inspire each other. I’m always inspired when I get to come over and play music for y’all and you just give so much love. You’re so good at singing along, listening and having a good time. You are good at having a good time, no matter how much beer you drink you can still hold a conversation with me!
You almost made it on stage in London for C2C in March but did perform in Berlin and Amsterdam with Tenille Townes and Abby Anderson. What was it like to be part of the Introducing Nashville experience to European fans?
It was an awesome experience, yet heart-breaking that we didn’t get to play London, Glasgow and Dublin but hopefully we will get to come back and do that again. Tenille and Abby are so good and I loved that CMA had us come over on that tour but we were bummed out at the end. We were in the hotel next to The O2 for a couple of days waiting to play. It was the right call when everyone realised how contagious Covid-19 was we don’t need to have on our hands bringing all those people together and potentially getting sick. It was such a strange feeling, we got the call about midnight in London and were on a flight about five hours later to get back. I’m sure everyone has their own stories from when people realised. I was definitely bummed out and thank goodness The Shires tour is getting moved and not cancelled. So hopefully come October/ November I’ll get to come back and support them and perform some new songs for you guys. I’ll get to see some new places too as I’ve not been to a lot of these towns. I’m glad that Crissy and Ben invited me to come hang out with them on their tour.
You will be making a stop in my hometown of Guildford. A town you’ve probably never heard of!
I have heard of it because I looked at the tour, I looked at every town to see how we were moving around. There’re all these places I’ve never been.
It even helps when the venue is walking distance from home!
You can drink a few more then!!!
How will performing with a band like The Shires open up your fan base while you’re over here as they may have fans who haven’t heard your music before?
In Nashville, if you tell your booking agent or anyone actually you want to tour the UK, they look at you and say hopefully you can get on a Shires tour. I got a text from Ben a while back before it had gone to the business people to see if I would do it. It worked out perfect, I should have been there right now but that wasn’t meant to be. I’m thrilled I’ll get to be in front of a crowd that loves great music and it’s amazing I get to go over and don’t take it for granted that I get to play in front of all their fans and hopefully can share some fans with them so we can do more tours in the future together.
Even though people at the shows may not know your music, they may a song you wrote as it now has a unique country radio accomplishment.
I’m just confusing everyone as they are like, does he write songs, does he sing songs? I’m pretty sure Clapton does both and Coldplay does both and people think all the singers did their own stuff and I’m very grateful that other friends of mine have recorded songs I’ve written. I wrote Barefoot Blue Jean Night for Jake (Jake Owen) and it ended up being the song of the decade. I don’t even know, I know it’s possible as everyone loves singing whoa whoas and it was pretty exciting to hear that had happened. I think I had four songs I had written in the top 100 of the decade, which is pretty cool.
When you are writing songs, does anything feel different about a certain song and you think this could be a hit or do you just try to get the whoa whoas in as much as possible?
When you’re writing a song, you realise there is an amazing energy. When you are writing with co-writers and the line comes out you see everybody start tapping. All the lyrics are working and you know you’ve got it. You have that feeling and then going into the studio to record it to see if it sounds how it should be. We pick the best songs and a great band so you can capture that magic. Even when you have a great song you still need to capture that lightning in a bottle. I think every songwriters job is to write a good song and occasionally you capture a great one. A lot of the times those great ones will be done in an hour once you have a lyric down. It might take weeks, you never know but most of them fall out pretty quick and everyone’s excited about it when you’re done, then you drive around listening to it over and over again because you love it so much. With Heartbeat Higher, the new song coming out, I definitely remember writing that with Sarah and Zack and driving around listening to knowing the it had to be released and people had to hear it.
Thank you very much for speaking with Country in the UK and I look forward to welcoming you to Guildford for a beer very soon.
The new track, Heartbeat Higher, is set to be released on Friday (8th May). It’s quite an upbeat song with a positive vibe, do you think this song can lift people’s spirits?
I sure hope so. It’s a fun song and a great love song. I got to share the mic with Sarah Buxton on it, she’s a co-writer. Hopefully everyone will get a little excitement from it and give them something to look forward to the next time we all get to hang out together at live shows and we can sing it together.
You wrote the song with Zack Crowell and Sarah Buxton, did it take much persuading to get Sarah to feature on the song or was the female vocal always written for her?
She’s always been singing on it from the day we wrote it she would sing her part and I would sing mine. It’s probably even more of a reason I love the song so much as she’s such a good singer and I feel like our voices just sound so good together. Ever since we wrote it, she’s been the one singing on it and she is so good. When anyone hears it, they always ask who the vocal is as she’s just so good. Her husband is a great guitar player and is actually playing the guitar on this record. It was really cool to have both of them there in the studio as they are such great friends of me and my wife and I love them both to death. I’m so happy that the first song from this record has her and her husband featuring on it.
You filmed the video in Stockholm, what was it like filming there?
It was beautiful. We woke up early in Stockholm and got some amazing shots. It was my very first time being there through the streets for the first time in awe of how beautiful the city was. It’s always great to get to go to a new town and walk around it, soak up the vibes and get to se the people. It was a whole lot of fun getting to tour over there and I’m glad that we decided to wake up and not be lazy as we got some really cool footage for the song.
Was it always your intention to shoot the video there or more of a spontaneous decision?
It was my goal as we were in a beautiful city. Timothy who filmed it and edited it is just so good, so we sort of had a plan to film there as we thought it would be good for the song. With the quarantine time we got to use a lot more studio footage than we would have liked and it actually turned out even better than I thought because with Sarah on the track we didn’t need to be in each others world right now whilst quarantine and it wouldn’t be safe to get a whole crew together right now. I think it turned out amazing just having the mixture of those shots from Stockholm and shots in the studio together.
You’ve already performed the song during recent online sessions, with this being your first new release in a while, how has the reaction to it been?
It’s not a brand new song as I’ve been playing it on the road a little bit. I don’t think any song is ever brand new by the time it comes out but the reaction of when we announced it as the first song was great. It’s great to see the reactions and the exciting exclamation marks from fans in posts. I’m just excited to have new music coming out and knowing that this is not just one song and we have a whole project we will be rolling out over the summer. I cannot wait for people to hear this song and the rest of the project
With this release announced, are fans already asking for more even though this song isn’t out till Friday?
Oh yeah, we won’t make you wait too long, although it always feels longer than it is. I’ve already made fans wait long enough that hopefully having a whole album roll out over a few months will be enough music. Knowing that every three to four weeks we have a new song coming out is really exciting.
It’s quite a unique time to be releasing new music and performing for fans. Is it a bit odd knowing that people can only watch through phone and computer screens?
I think it’s odd for everybody, it’s like a whole new world. Hopefully after all the pandemic is done we will be able to show up live in person. Even though I can’t fly over to the UK at the minute and play for you all there, it’s great to still be able to see each other online, get together, talk and play some music to still be connected. It’s incredible just how connected we can be even though we are thousands of miles apart or to your next door name who is quarantine. I’m just trying to see it as the glass half full with all that is happening but still very much looking forward to being there in person and playing shows with everybody knowing we are all healthy and safe to be in the same room together.
You’ve built an incredible connection with fans across the UK, having released a Live in Glasgow album and now allowing Chris Country to have the exclusive first play of the new track. What is it about the fans here that has made that click with you?
I don’t know, I am thrilled though. I definitely have a lot of influence of European artists, so I don’t know if that’s it but who knows. From U2, Coldplay, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel I could go on and on with the artists I like there, but we are good at reminding each other about what we did. The Stones had to remind us about the blues (and did a good job), Adele reminded us about what Aretha Franklin did, it’s just about making sure that you realise this is great music and there is so many talented people everywhere and we inspire each other. I’m always inspired when I get to come over and play music for y’all and you just give so much love. You’re so good at singing along, listening and having a good time. You are good at having a good time, no matter how much beer you drink you can still hold a conversation with me!
You almost made it on stage in London for C2C in March but did perform in Berlin and Amsterdam with Tenille Townes and Abby Anderson. What was it like to be part of the Introducing Nashville experience to European fans?
It was an awesome experience, yet heart-breaking that we didn’t get to play London, Glasgow and Dublin but hopefully we will get to come back and do that again. Tenille and Abby are so good and I loved that CMA had us come over on that tour but we were bummed out at the end. We were in the hotel next to The O2 for a couple of days waiting to play. It was the right call when everyone realised how contagious Covid-19 was we don’t need to have on our hands bringing all those people together and potentially getting sick. It was such a strange feeling, we got the call about midnight in London and were on a flight about five hours later to get back. I’m sure everyone has their own stories from when people realised. I was definitely bummed out and thank goodness The Shires tour is getting moved and not cancelled. So hopefully come October/ November I’ll get to come back and support them and perform some new songs for you guys. I’ll get to see some new places too as I’ve not been to a lot of these towns. I’m glad that Crissy and Ben invited me to come hang out with them on their tour.
You will be making a stop in my hometown of Guildford. A town you’ve probably never heard of!
I have heard of it because I looked at the tour, I looked at every town to see how we were moving around. There’re all these places I’ve never been.
It even helps when the venue is walking distance from home!
You can drink a few more then!!!
How will performing with a band like The Shires open up your fan base while you’re over here as they may have fans who haven’t heard your music before?
In Nashville, if you tell your booking agent or anyone actually you want to tour the UK, they look at you and say hopefully you can get on a Shires tour. I got a text from Ben a while back before it had gone to the business people to see if I would do it. It worked out perfect, I should have been there right now but that wasn’t meant to be. I’m thrilled I’ll get to be in front of a crowd that loves great music and it’s amazing I get to go over and don’t take it for granted that I get to play in front of all their fans and hopefully can share some fans with them so we can do more tours in the future together.
Even though people at the shows may not know your music, they may a song you wrote as it now has a unique country radio accomplishment.
I’m just confusing everyone as they are like, does he write songs, does he sing songs? I’m pretty sure Clapton does both and Coldplay does both and people think all the singers did their own stuff and I’m very grateful that other friends of mine have recorded songs I’ve written. I wrote Barefoot Blue Jean Night for Jake (Jake Owen) and it ended up being the song of the decade. I don’t even know, I know it’s possible as everyone loves singing whoa whoas and it was pretty exciting to hear that had happened. I think I had four songs I had written in the top 100 of the decade, which is pretty cool.
When you are writing songs, does anything feel different about a certain song and you think this could be a hit or do you just try to get the whoa whoas in as much as possible?
When you’re writing a song, you realise there is an amazing energy. When you are writing with co-writers and the line comes out you see everybody start tapping. All the lyrics are working and you know you’ve got it. You have that feeling and then going into the studio to record it to see if it sounds how it should be. We pick the best songs and a great band so you can capture that magic. Even when you have a great song you still need to capture that lightning in a bottle. I think every songwriters job is to write a good song and occasionally you capture a great one. A lot of the times those great ones will be done in an hour once you have a lyric down. It might take weeks, you never know but most of them fall out pretty quick and everyone’s excited about it when you’re done, then you drive around listening to it over and over again because you love it so much. With Heartbeat Higher, the new song coming out, I definitely remember writing that with Sarah and Zack and driving around listening to knowing the it had to be released and people had to hear it.
Thank you very much for speaking with Country in the UK and I look forward to welcoming you to Guildford for a beer very soon.
