Jon Pardi‘s Mr. Saturday Night album came out in September of 2022. The record, which included his No. 1 hit, “Last Night Lonely,” was full of the classic Pardi songs people have grown to love and expect from him. The California native is now working on a new record, which will likely include both songs that he did and did not write.
“We’re starting to write. I call them ‘song starters,’ things that I can bring to co-writes … and I’m listening to outside songs, which I love hearing and recording what songwriters are writing,” Pardi reveals on Audacy’s Totally Private. “I had a great meeting with my publisher, Sony. We had like 100 writers on this Zoom call, and I got on there and told them what I was feeling.”
The new Grand Ole Opry member says his next record might not have quite the same sound, or feel, as any of his previous four projects.
“I’m not going a different direction, but I’m going to do something fresh,” Pardi explains. “I’m going to work with a guy that I’ve never got to work with, somebody I look up to in the producer world, Jay Joyce. He’s the guy that’s got something special, and us coming together with the right songs, I feel like is going to be real special. He’s excited, I’m excited.”
Joyce, whose impressive list of credits includes Eric Church, Keith Urban, The Wallflowers, Emmylou Harris and more, will bring something new to Pardi’s music.
“We’re really going to merge some of the more traditional honky-tonk stuff that he really hasn’t done,” Pardi says, citing Joyce’s numerous successes. “There comes a time when you gotta shake things up and push yourself.. For me, it’s pushing myself. We’re always trying to be relevant and stick around.”
The singer, whose wife Summer is pregnant with the couple’s second child, revealed last year that he had also quit drinking, in an attempt to look and feel better.
“I’m losing fluff. I’m still not drinking,” Pardi says. “I still plan on it one day, but right now, all I’ve really done is party, party, party, and that’s all I really know. So I’m just trying to learn how to not drink like a 20-year-old anymore. It’s a big switch.”
“For now, I really, really want to look better in photos,” he continues. “We’re all aging and it’s time to really be healthier. That’s my main focus of why. You’ve got these guys like Riley Green, they’re always showing off six-pack abs. I’ve got tough competition, so I gotta be on it.”
Pardi has plenty of tour dates on the calendar in 2024. His current single, “Cowboys And Plowboys,” a collaboration with Luke Bryan, is in the Top 40. Find music and tour dates at JonPardi.com.