Chase Rice‘s deeply personal  I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell album is out now. The 13-track record is an honest, and even vulnerable, look into Rice’s own life. It was a decision he made while off the road because of the pandemic, and began at least in part thanks to a journal given to him by his brother.

“I think that helped me start writing songs in the first place,” Rice tells Everything Nash. “And I think through the last two years of not doing anything during COVID, I think my songwriting process was trying to make hits before now. I think I took it into just trying to write songs that are about my life. that are really about my life, and that aren’t about just the party aspect of my life.”

The Florida native never spent so much time away from his fans, in the history of his career, until the forced time off the road. While he wasn’t always appreciative of that season in the moment, he can now in hindsight see all of the good that came out of it.

“It was just a weird year, but I think a lot of blessings came from it for sure,” Rice reflects. “For me this album did. And not even just this album. I think it’s just changed my whole career. And I don’t know what that necessarily means in the long run, but it definitely changed my entire career because now I’m doing stuff that I’ve always been better at. I was caught up in the party phase. I was caught up in the entertainment aspect of my career more than focusing on just making good songs. And through that I made some good songs, but I didn’t ever make this.”

Rice has never been this open and raw in his music before, but that isn’t because he just tapped into those feelings. Instead, the 37-year-old says it’s always been who he is at his core, but wasn’t able to share it publicly, until now. But although there are songs like “Bench Seat” on the record, there are also uplifting, positive songs, all songs witjh a deep, personal meaning to Rice.

“This is what I’ve always done. I’m best at it,” Rice says. “So it’s weird for me to keep hearing that this is a new me. No, it’s not. It’s just the me that I haven’t shown the world, and now that’s what people are gonna get.  It ain’t going back to what it was. And it’s sad and a little disappointing that I’ve got this stigma about me, but it’s self-induced. I did it to myself. So all I can do now is sit here and be like, ‘This is me and who I am. I’m not trying to be somebody else. I’m not trying to be what’s popular right now. This is just the music I’m making and I’m gonna keep making it that way and that’s all I can really focus on.'”

Rice’s father, Daniel Rice, who passed away in 2008, is on the cover of I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell. Rice wanted to honor his father, and his legacy, with the telling project, but only if he could do it with the blessing of the rest of his family, especially his mother.

“I asked her first if she was cool with me using [the photo],” Rice recalls. “I asked my brothers as well, ’cause that’s personal. That’s dad’s picture going everywhere. She’s proud of it. My brothers are proud of it. They love the music, first of all, which I think if it was a sh– record, they’d probably be like, ‘Dude, nah, don’t use that picture. Dad wouldn’t be proud of it.’ But they are proud of the music first. They’re proud of how far I’ve come, and they’re proud of my dad being everywhere … I don’t know what he’d think of it, but I think he’d be proud of me and how far I’ve come. He’d be proud of the fight that I’m in, and I think he’d be proud of this music.”

After enjoying an already successful career with songs like “Ready Set Roll,” “Gonna Wanna Tonight” and more, as well as co-writing the Florida Georgia Line monster hit, “Cruise,” Rice says he isn’t done writing catchy, hit songs. But now, he is also ready to share his heart and his soul in his music as well.

“It’s not going backward,” Rice says of being transparent in his music. “It’s called I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell, and there’s some heavy stuff on it, but the overall theme of the album is love. So I think that’s a positive place to be too, and something positive to talk about.”

Rice will embark on his Way Down Yonder Tour on March 3 in Laughlin, Nevada. Find I Hate Everyone & All Dogs Go To Hell, as well as a list of all of Rice’s upcoming shows, at ChaseRice.com.

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Photo Credit: Courtesy of EB Media / Kaiser Cunningham