Chase Rice Talks New Album ‘Eldora,’ Freedom As An Independent Artist, And Finding His True Sound

Chase Rice will release his brand-new album, entitled Eldora. Out tomorrow (Friday, Sept. 19), and dropping on his 40th birthday, this 12-track offering features a dozen incredible storyteller songs that are deeply personal to the independent artist, as he explores western themes and topics that capture both sad and happy emotions.

Written mostly in the stillness of a cabin in the breathtaking mountains of Colorado, and produced by Oscar Charles, Eldora finds Rice stretching his creative boundaries and songwriting muscles while enjoying his freedom as an artist who doesn’t feel the need to chase mainstream radio anymore. That’s something Rice did with his previous album, 2024’s Go Down Singin’, except this time, he doubles down even further as a gifted storyteller who fully embraces who he is, which is a far cry from the bro-country leanings that he was once known for.

“This is a lot more raw and real than even the last two albums,” Rice acknowledges of Eldora during an interview with Music Mayhem. “The last two albums… were us learning what this new era of my life is. With this one, we took it even further. [The last two] were with a full band, ‘Let’s record together.’ This one was, ‘Hey, what am I best at?’ And we discovered through the work tapes in that cabin, it’s really, really powerful when I sing into the phone with a guitar.”

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When listening to Eldora front-to-back, folks will hear Rice showcasing his powerful, gritty vocals and mysterious cowboy-like whisper over a well-built balance of strong lyrics and true musicianship. It’s easy for one to feel as though they are sitting in the same room as he is, as Eldora puts Rice in the category of a genre-defying trailblazer, who is still capable of selling out shows and reaching new audiences despite having changed trajectory and taking the more challenging route.

“I don’t know who the hell else could have made this record. And that’s a really fun place to be,” he says of the album that he recorded on his farm in Nashville.

“Just one takes, singing into the microphones with me on a guitar, and then adding the band around it. That’s how raw this is,” Rice said, describing Eldora. “There’s no doctoring the vocals. There’s no doctoring. The guitars and what you hear is what you get, and it’s a very raw way to do it, but the mistakes are in there, and it’s a very human way to do it.”

Before Go Down Singin’, Rice was still at his label Broken Bow Records/BBR Music Group, but he had given folks a taste of his bold new chapter that found him leaning into a new direction, with 2023’s double album, I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go to Hell.

“I was just chasing what was popular before the Cowboys record,” Rice explained of his time at the label before his exit, which came in the summer of 2024. “I didn’t know what I was doing. Now I found that confidence to be like, ‘All right. Well, if I give up on mainstream and try to chase what’s popular, I’m okay with that. And if it never comes back, I’m cool with that. I want to make great records. I want to be proud of my music at the end of my life. And that’s where I’m at now.”

The flexibility that comes with stepping away from a label means Rice can choose when and where to write and when and where to create an album on his own terms. Such is the case with Eldora, which may have never come to fruition had it not been for the singer/songwriter’s show at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheater in August of 2024.

“We played Red Rocks the night before Oscar, my producer, and I were driving up to Rollinsville, and we passed a place called the Eldora Lodge, and that really started it,” Rice explained of the inspiration behind the entire project. “It was like, I don’t know what Eldora is, but we are writing about whoever that is, and it’s the city, but it’s really about a person called Eldora or just the town she’s from. It never really gets specific, but that’s the heart of the album, a story about this couple…. It’s a lot of story songs that are just very well written that we took our time to make sure that they were written right in that cabin.”

Only three of the 12 tracks were penned outside of Colorado in Nashville, which proves the authenticity of Rice’s creative direction, as he shared that he has spent the last 5 summers living in Montana. The title track features steady percussion and delicate guitar picking as Rice paints a picture of lasting love that has overcome one of the toughest moments due to a regretful decision. Rice tells that story best.

“Eldora ended up being a story about this couple who break up for what reason, you don’t really know. And then it gives a little hint at it,” he explains of the meaning behind the track. “I’m saying, ‘we were just two kids with too much life to live,’ which is the bomb that drops if you catch it. It explains that the couple had an abortion, and they couldn’t get over the decision that they made, and they split up.”

“That’s a theme in life, especially when couples lose a child in general, they end up — the divorce rates are insanely high,” he adds. “So this couple wasn’t married, but they couldn’t get over the decision they made to have that abortion. And finally, he’s like, they know they’re still in love, so I’m coming back to you. I’m going to figure this out. I can’t get over the times that we had together, and we need to have more times together. So he goes back and gets her back.”

Rice’s favorite song on the album is titled “Circa 1943.” Written with Oscar Charles and Wyatt McCubbin, the track was inspired by the Florida native’s grandparents, Harold and Berniece. Featuring a rollicking melody and love story, Rice unveils the heartbreaking twist of fate that the couple met with in the final chorus.

“Wish you could see that we made it to Superior, Montana / Your brother’s band sure sounded good last Tuesday night / He just turned two and looks like you and although he don’t understand yet / Flowers on a cross and water from his momma’s eyes / We just wanted you to know, we made it out of there alive,” Rice croons the final chorus.

“It’s loosely based on my grandparents’ meeting in World War II. They did not meet in World War II; they met before that, but a lot of people can relate to that one with their grandparents’ story. A lot of people who met in World War II had babies, and there are a lot of babies out there that didn’t have their dad or their mom. They never came home. And that’s what circa 1943 is,” Rice explains the meaning behind the final chorus of the track.

Eldora also features its fair share of lighthearted tracks, such as “Cottonmouth,” which features a groovy melody and is all about the simple joys of lighting one up for the very first time. Also written alongside Charles and McCubbin, Rice says, the song came about after he and his co-writers had already penned three songs.

“People think it’s going to be about a snake. No, it’s just about your first time getting high, and let’s tell the stories, the details behind that. You hit it too hard, ashes on your car. It’s just a fun song where we didn’t overthink,” Rice said. “It is what happens the first time you get high and you’re in high school, and usually you’re in college, whatever. And we started it that night as the fourth song, and then the next morning we knocked it out pretty quick.”

“Good Side of Gettin’ Older” follows, giving folks a different side of the coin with Rice singing about slowing down and sharing a deeper sense of wisdom within the lyrics. “I had a title on my phone and I’d been wanting to write it. I just didn’t really know how to write it. And Wyatt started playing this little lick,” Rice shared of the tune he penned alongside Charles and McCubbin. “I’m like, that sounds like ‘Good Side of Gettin’ Older.’ I didn’t know how to write that song, and he started playing it. I’m like, ‘Yep, I think that’s how we write it.’ And Oscar, out of nowhere, we had the first just kind of, I wanted to tell the good stuff, the really fun part about getting older, because whether you love it, hate it, it’s happening for all of us. And Oscar throws out that melody, and I was like, ‘Yes, that’s something I probably wouldn’t have thought of.’ So hell yeah, Oscar. So those two really, really led the charge on a song that I did not know how to write.”

Three tracks on Eldora feature collaborations. They are “Two Tone Trippin’” with Wyatt McCubbin, “Country & Western” featuring Madeline Edwards, and “Tall Grass” with guest vocals by Kashus Culpepper and Elvie Shane.

Of the latter, written alongside Charles and Foy Vance, Rice says, “That was all Oscar. He changed my life, helping me make the music that I wanted to make. And he knew in ‘Tall Grass,’ that Foy Vance, who we wrote it with, could not do the song. It had a conflict with him. Foy had something I could not replicate, which was soul. He has a crazy amount of soul when he sings… So he’s like, Elvie man, Elvie sings with some serious soul. All right, let’s get some Elvie Shane in there. Who else? Kashus Culpepper. And that’s how Kashus came in….I said, ‘Hell yes!… Oscar recommended both of them. I trusted them.’”

“The big theme of this record is letting go, not overthinking anything. Let’s just try to make it the best we absolutely possibly can and see what the hell happens,” Rice said. “And then that’s what I wanted on this record was other artists that I didn’t care how big their name was, I cared how much they wanted to do it. That was the biggest thing for me.  Kashus and Elvie were fired up to do it. That meant a lot to me that they wanted to work on my album. The same goes for Madeline Edwards. She was really excited to do the song. We could have tried to get other bigger artists or whatever, more household names, but Madeline really loved it and she’s incredibly talented and she wanted to do it, and that meant a lot to me.”

Rice, who celebrated the release of Eldora the best way he knows how — floating down the river in a boat with family and friends in Montana — says he hopes listeners enjoy the songs on the album from top to bottom, as that’s how he placed them and that’s the order in which they were written.   

“Hopefully they give it a chance and then listen to the whole album, listen to it in the order that was written, and feel the feelings behind these songs. There are real stories, and you can feel that in these songs. They’re all very real. It’s not about chasing fads anymore; it’s about telling stories about people. And these stories, I hope, get a chance to be heard,” Rice said. “I love writing songs on guitar, and those songs were all written on guitar. So that’s what really made me realize that’s my favorite thing to do. And it may be harder. I might be choosing this road that is significantly harder than trying to chase hits, but I don’t care. I’m at a place in my life. I’m going to do it, come hell or high water, and it’s going to be the road I’m going down.”

With Eldora, Chase Rice isn’t just releasing an album — he’s cementing himself as a true storyteller, finally embracing the artist he was always meant to be.

Chase Rice Eldora Track List