Interview: Chris Lane Says Watching His Songs Come to Life Live Is ‘The Best Part’
Chris Lane headed out on the road for a new leg of his Fill Them Boots tour earlier this month, bringing with him a completely reimagined setlist.
"I've created a new show," Lane told Taste of Country ahead of the tour.
"It's always so much fun to me, and I feel like it's what I'm strongest at, is going in and creating a show and putting it on," he continues. "I always have so much fun putting a show together, and then going out and just doing it."
The singer is full of fresh ideas and inspiration after wrapping the first batch of his own headlining dates late last year and going on the road with Kane Brown in 2021. It's a labor of love for Lane, who says that it's when he's onstage that he reaps the rewards from all the hard work he puts into honing his musical craft.
"As an artist, hearing people sing your songs back is the best part about everything," Lane explains. "You create it, you take it in the studio, you record it and then put it out there, and when you get a great reaction and hear people singing it — it's the best thing in the world."
That love shows through in his performances, as he is often at his most creative when he's at work in a live setting. During the 2019 shows on his Big, Big Plans Tour, for example, he filmed some live videos, like his "Take Back Home Girl" performance at a Chicago stop. Those videos turned out to come in handy: The following year, the touring industry came screeching to a halt during the COVID-19 pandemic, and those videos proved to be a way for both Lane and his fans to revisit the joy of live music.
Given all that, it's no surprise that he's a big fan of live albums, or that he wants to put out one of his own one day.
"Oh my gosh, I love live albums," he gushes. "I feel like I listen to Kenny Chesney's live album all the time. Or, Jimmy Buffett does a lot of live stuff. Anytime an artist puts out a live record, I'm like, 'Man, I want to do that one day.'"
But in the meantime, there are more pressing matters at hand, such as the rollout of his next musical chapter. Lane recently shared a new song called "Stop Coming Over" — a love song that, he says, reminds him of the energy and wordplay of his previous hit, "I Don't Know About You" — which is the latest in a string of one-off releases that he's shared over the past year. In addition to "Fill Them Boots," the song that lends its name to Lane's tour, he's also put out "Ain't Even Met You Yet," a song for his then-unborn son, as well as the nostalgic "Summer Job Money" and the tender "That's What Mamas Are For."
Is all this new music building to an album? Maybe. But Lane says that's not his focus at the moment. "I told my team I wanted to take a different approach and just put out as many songs as possible, instead of having them tied to a record and having to stay on that for a while," he relates.
"I think when you put out 10 or 12 songs all at once, sometimes a great song can get overlooked because people's attention spans are, I feel like, much shorter nowadays than they used to be," the singer goes on to say. "So I don't mind that approach, just getting one song out there at a time and letting people kinda get used to it."
For example, "Stop Coming Over" came out in December 2021. That'll give the song just enough time, Lane hopes, to become a favorite by the time fans see him at his Fill Them Boots shows.
"At the start of tour, [it was out for] a just a little under a month," he points out. "I'm interested to see if people know it and if they're singing along to it, just like they did with 'Big Plans,' and 'I Don't Know About You' and 'Take Back Home Girl.'"