“Eyes On You” puts Chase Rice in party
mood
Fortieth No. 1 for co-writer Ashley
Gorley
By Preshias Harris for Country Music News International Magazine & Radio Show
Tuesday, June 11, 2019 is a date that Chase
Rice will remember for a long time. It
was the date of his first Number One party. Chase celebrated the success of
“Eyes On You” with co-writers Ashley Gorley and Chris DeStafano at The Tin Roof
in Nashville.
Chase, Ashley and Chris met with members of
the music media before the awards presentation and recalled the day that they
wrote “Eyes On You.”
“That day was pretty pivotal because it was
not good in my career the day we wrote that,” admitted Chase. “I was on my way
out of Sony. I think I had, like, a week left in my contract. It was a scary time for me, even though,
looking back, I probably wasn’t acknowledging that as much, but it was a tough
time. Like, ‘if we don’t get something going big right now, this could go south
real quick.’”
“Ashley started playing this piano riff. We wrote the song and we pretty much tracked
the entire record that day,” said Chris DeStefano, who also produced the track.
“All of Ashley’s piano parts sounded incredible. Chase felt so strongly about
that record that he signed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and on the bottle it says,
‘This is going to be my first number one song.’ That was just over two years
ago.”
They still have the bottle and it’s still
unopened – or at least it was during the media meeting!
“Chase is unique because he already had a
fan base established before a number one record,” noted Ashley. “A lot of
times, we’re trying to write a hit that gets somebody in there, but now we’re
just trying to enhance what he already had going. That’s a great position to be
in so we had fun. We had a lot of
different cuts with Chase, but this one just stood out.”
“Chase and I have been working together
since Day One, since the first time we got in the room together,” said Chris
DeStefano. “It was ‘Ready, Set, Roll’ [co-written] with Rhett Akins and that
came all the way up, almost rang the bell.
But it’s become a little bit sweeter because it didn’t. The last three or four years have been an
incredible ride. I’ve believed in Chase
since Day One. He’s one of the hardest-working guys in the business. An amazing
person. He deserves this, and I feel that, right now, it’s sweeter because of
all that time that’s gone by and all the musical memories we’ve had in the [writers]
rooms together and we’ve been able to share an awful lot of awesome history.”
Chase acknowledged that the greatest thing
to happen to him was the ‘failure’ of the last three years. Early success can
sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing.
I reminded Ashley that I had seen him
perform “Eyes On You” during this year’s Tin Pan South. I recalled that as soon
as Ashley hit the keyboard, everyone started screaming then calmed down so they
could hear the song. I asked Ashley if
he knew how many number ones he has now racked up as a songwriter.
“This is number forty for me,” replied
Ashley.
Chris DeStefano chimed in, “The best part
about having number ones with Ashley Gorley is… having a number one with Ashley
Gorley! But they’re all special.”
“This was a landmark thing for me,” said
Ashley, referring to his fortieth number one. “But for all of us to be friends;
I was best man at Chris’ wedding. We’re
all very tight, and this one was specially unique what with being Chase’s first
number one, knowing what we want to do, which is get the artist to the next level. This was a special one in lots of ways.
Numbers and all that stuff aside, just to be with people we enjoy working with
makes it extra special.”
Chase talked about how he found out that
“Eyes On You” was going to top the Country Singles charts. He said he got a call from the label telling
him that the new chart would be coming out on the following Monday and he would
be getting his first Number One.
“Everything that night was pretty fitting.
It was a Saturday night in small town, Alabama, it was dumping rain on us. The
show was, like, way below what we had been doing because it was just pouring
all day and it was an outdoor show.”
Chase said it seemed very fitting for his
career to find out about the number one that way. Everything that could go
wrong had gone wrong so far that day.
“But it didn’t ruin the day at all. This
was awesome, man! This was what we worked hard for and tonight’s the
night. It would just be us and the band
and the crew, because there weren’t a lot of people at the show. But it ended
up being a perfect night.”
Chase talked about watching the progress of
“Eyes On You” on the charts. “Luke Combs was messin’ everybody up,” he said
with a smile. “He was sitting there [at number one] for, like, six weeks. But
it continued to be a smooth ride all the time.
There was never a moment of, ‘Oh God, what’s about to happen?’ Lee Adams, the head of the Broken Bow radio
staff, said, ‘Do you want me to update you every day?’ I said, ‘I want you to update me every day twice,
morning and night! And I was serious. I
started celebrating then. I haven’t really stopped.”
But despite the celebrations, Chase knows
that, first and foremost the music business is a business.
“The
thing people don’t see is I’m still waking up every day at eight,” he
said. “I’m working out, I’ve been
staying on writing every day. Not to
mention we’ve just put out ‘Lonely If You Are’ last week, which Chris
[DeStefano] produced. So we’ve been working
hard. Everyone sees the party but there’s been a lot of work going on in the
meantime. I’ve celebrated hard but I
understand we’ve got to keep working.”