After having been off the road because of the pandemic, country singer Dustin Lynch was nervous going into his “Party Mode 2022” tour.
“We hadn’t done this in awhile,” he says. “This tour is after a long break, so the adrenaline is running in overload and we’re having the most fun possible on stage.”
The nerves are gone now, though.
“Come to the show and leave with a smile on your face. You’ll be glad you came.”
Lynch debuted with a self-titled 2012 album. The new tour follows his “Blue in the Sky” album, which features recent hits “Party Mode” and “Thinking ‘Bout You.”
“I didn’t really have a goal when I started writing for ‘Blue in the Sky,’” he says. “I was just doing my best to write songs while I was at home with family and friends and parties on the boat. Lots of fun started shining through with what I wanted to write about.”
The relationship he had been in didn’t outlast the pandemic.
“You live and you learn, and I came out on the other side of that,” he says. “This album embraces where I am in life.”
He says “Party Mode” came after the breakup when he needed it most.
”That was a punch to the chest,” Lynch says. “But then the sense of a new chapter came over me. I thought about the fun I was about to have with my friends, I thought about who I would be able to meet, and that inspired me as a songwriter.”
Despite being a breakup song, he says, “it’s about fun.”
“Break It on a Beach” also addresses the breakup, which happened on a beach stroll in Florida. “I can’t return there without thinking about what went down that day,” he says. His ex hasn’t responded to the song.
For “Thinking ‘Bout You,” he wanted the perfect voice and listened to many audition tapes without knowing the singers’ names. MacKenzie Porter’s audition caught him off guard.
“Her voice was right on,” Lynch says. “There’s this vulnerability in her tone that’s really unique and identifiable. That stuck out — gave me chills. She effortlessly hit those giant notes that not many people can hit. I knew right away whoever this was was a unique individual. She’s a hard-working girl with a bright future ahead.”
The song was a 2022 CMT Music Awards nominee for collaborative video of the year.
Chris Lane, a past touring partner, sings with Lynch on “Tequila on a Boat.”
“He’s always asking me out on the boat on lake days, and he enjoys drinking tequila sodas,” Lynch says. “It felt better having a friend on the song, and he did a great job on it.”
In another seemingly perfect combo, Riley Green is featured on “Huntin’ Land.”
“He lives that life,” Lynch says. “It wasn’t an artist singing a song. He’s an outdoorsman singing a song he knows.”
For Lynch, the album also represents “being comfortable about who I am now, not being scared of what I say or put out. I said, ‘Let’s put out an album that’s gonna make people smile and listen and want to play with their family and friends.’ I want a lot of these songs to make playlists.”
Before “Blue in the Sky,” Lynch released “Tullahoma” featuring “Good Girls,” “Ridin’ Roads” and a version of “Thinking ‘Bout You” that was recorded with Lauren Alaina. Now he’s able to give “Tullahoma” its proper due.
“We weren’t able to do the album at all — weren’t able to get the songs in front of people,” he says. “It was a blessing to have a couple of hits that made waves. But I wasn’t able to tour and get the live response like in the past. It’s fun now to experience those songs, and we’re getting an overload of that now.”
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