Joe Nichols‘ new record is out, and it is pure country gold. The 47-year-old just released Honky Tonks and Country Songs, his 11th studio album, and one that embraces his deep love of country music and its legacy.
“It’s a country album,” Nichols tells Everything Nash. “There are a lot of, I think, throwback-sounding songs, throwing back to ’90s country, and where I grew up, a teenager in the ’90s. It feels like a lot of those really cool, simple stories, simple melodies, catch them with a hook in three minutes. It just feels like it belongs on a jukebox in a honky tonk.”
Included on Honky Tonks and Country Songs is his current hit, “Better Than You,” a collaboration with Annie Bosko. The song, the debut single from the record, was among the most-added songs at radio when it was released.
“It’s one of those rare songs that’s actually written as a duet,” Nichols says of the song, written by Derek George and John Pierce. “It’s a fantastically-written song that’s written as a duet, and when we cut it, we all looked at each other like, ‘Man, we got something really good here. We need to hone in on who can make this a hit.'”
Nichols tapped Bosko to join him on the song, after doing a show with her in El Paso, Texas.
“I think she’s a star, and she made it sound like it on the record,” he boasts. “I think we blend well, which is another key thing with duets. You don’t know how it’s going to blend until you get in the thick of it, and she did it. She did a great job, and we ended up getting it right, which is a big deal.”
Also included on Honky Tonks and Country Songs is a cover of the Hank Williams, Jr. classic, “Country Boy Can Survive.” It’s a surprising track that makes complete sense, as part of a project celebrating the country music Nichols loves so deeply.
“I usually stay away from covering iconic songs by iconic singers, because that’s just a surefire way to make people mad at you,” Nichols explains. “It started off as an idea, and became an actual finished thought. I started doing ‘Country Boy Can Survive’ in my shows, as a mashup with the song ‘Rooster,’ from Alice in Chains, and mashed them up into one song. When we went in to cut, we decided to cut the mashup, and we cut the full lengths of each song, and we got just a really good cut of ‘Country Boy Can Survive.’
“When we were completing the album, we couldn’t leave it out,” he adds. “It sounded good. It was a good addition to the album as a whole. It brings a different energy, and it’s got some grit. I hope people don’t hate me for it.”
At the start of the year, Nichols revealed that he was working on a new album, one that he hinted had some “old ’90s-country feeling stuff,” along with some “real good dance music.” For Nichols, it was important to him to celebrate the kind of music he grew up on, and still enjoys today.
Photo Credit: Gregg Roth
“There’s a lot of steel guitar on there, which always makes me happy,” the Arkansas native says. “There’s some fiddle on there too, which is kind of a lost instrumentation. I love the feel of this album. It just throws back to, in my mind, a really great time in country music, where you could tell a simple story in three minutes, with a great melody, and you can dance to it.
“That was another thing that was big to me,” he continues. “Can you line dance to it? Can you double two-step, like we used to do at honky tonks? We’re starting to see that again; I see that more and more with the young, country crowd. People are starting to dance again. I love that.”
Nichols is by now a veteran in country music, with more than two decades of releasing albums and singles. But it’s Honky Tonks and Country Songs that fully embodies his musical journey, honoring the integrity of country music amid an era of crossover songs and genre-bending collaborations. If Honky Tonks and Country Songs is a gamble, it’s a gamble Nichols was willing to take.
“I feel scared to death,” Nichols concedes. “A little less these days, because I’ve been around a long time, and I know the dangers, I know the pay-offs, the rewards, the risks. I’m familiar with that, but it is like exposing your heart to the world, and hoping people like what they hear. That’s a real, valid feeling.”
When Nichols got his start, the first-week sales were the determining factor for the success of an entire record. Now, the climate has changed, and so have Nichols’ goals.
“There used to be this fear of having the first week go very good or very bad, and determining the life of the album,” he says. “You just want a build of some kind, because we’re in a streaming world nowadays. It is a factor in my anxiousness. We just want to have a great reaction, so we can have something to build on, so people will come to the album, whether it’s today or six months from now, we want to have a good piece of art that people can latch on to. ”
Find Honky Tonks and Country Songs, and all of Nichols’ music and upcoming shows, at JoeNichols.com.