Published by Cel Manero from Global One Media Inc.
McBryde assures fans that plenty of fresh music is coming soon.
Ashley McBryde is already well into the creative journey for her upcoming fifth studio album, which is shaping up to showcase the full spectrum of her musical abilities.
While backstage at Country Thunder Florida in Tampa, the acclaimed singer-songwriter sat down with Country Now to chat about the fresh songs she’s developing and how this creative phase has taken a slightly different path compared to her earlier projects.
“There’s a ton of new music,” McBryde said enthusiastically. “There are countless approaches to making a record — you can spend years writing songs, stash them away on a hard drive or in a notebook, and hope that when it’s time to record, they still spark the same excitement. That method has served us well before,” she added.
One of the earliest tracks to secure a place on the forthcoming album is the fan-favorite, “Ain’t Enough Cowboy Songs.” McBryde explained that this track came together — from writing to recording to releasing — in a much shorter window than usual, and the overwhelmingly positive response has inspired her to stick with that more immediate process for the rest of the project.
She also described how she and her band collaborate in a laid-back setting at her house. “I’m 41 and still have a garage band,” she laughed. “Everybody’s in charge of bringing their own gear — instruments, amps, microphones — and it’s your job to balance your sound in the room. We experiment by playing the songs in different styles — classic country, blues, whatever comes to mind — just to explore how the music feels in different arrangements.”
This approach has resulted in an abundance of material, which McBryde humorously describes as “buckets of songs.” She intends to sift through these collections and carefully select tracks from each to feature on the album, ensuring the project offers fans a diverse listening experience.
“If you’re after traditional country, we’ve got that,” she joked. “It’s kind of like the guy who used to open his jacket and show off different watches — ‘Looking for gold? I’ve got gold. Want silver? I’ve got that, too.’ We have so many song buckets that when it comes to making this fifth record, it’s like we’ll just grab a basket, stroll through them, and pick out what we want,” McBryde shared. “We’ll grab a little of this, a little of that, and we’re recording everything as it happens.”
