A chat with country music star Lee Brice

There but for the grace of God (and Curb Records), Lee Brice might be in the history books as Clemson University’s most legendary special teams long snapper.

His career as a Clemson Tiger, however, was cut short by an arm injury, which made Brice pursue, with equal determination, his other big interest: Music.

And that’s a big reason why the Sumter, South Carolina native, who performs Thursday at the BayCare Sound Amphitheatre, is one of today’s most popular country music singer/songwriters. The Country Music Association’s 2012 New Artist of the Year has been a consistent hitmaker – three platinum and two gold albums, eight No. 1 Airplay Hits, a Grammy Award and a CMA for Musical Event of the Year (“I Hope You’re Happy Now,” a duet with Carly Pearce). Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, Mark Wills and Blake Shelton have recorded Brice compositions.

His own best-known hits include “One of Them Girls,” “Memory I Don’t Mess With,” “Rumor,” “I Don’t Dance” and “Hard to Love.”

Brice’s most recent single and video, “Said No Country Boy Ever,” is a good-natured Traveling Wilburys-type affair that features him and his pals Jamey Johnson, Randy Houser, Jerrod Neimann, Rob Hatch and Dallas Davidson.

The burly ex-footballer is a soft-hearted family man who lives outside of Nashville with his wife and their three children.

Tickets for Thursday’s concert, Brice’s tour opener, are at this link.

St. Pete Catalyst: You might’ve had a career in pro football. Do you ever wish that had happened instead of music? “This singing thing is great, but I want to go out and bust some heads”?

Lee Brice: Well, I still miss bustin’ heads, but I will say I think it all worked out perfect. Because this (music) is my passion, but football was real. Music was a deep passion. So whenever I got hurt, it was always easy to say “This is a sign that where I’m supposed to be is Nashville.”

I still throw the football around, but my elbow, because of my injury – I can still snap one, but it hurts [laughing].

When I read that an artist such as yourself has such-and-such million streams and eight “Airplay Hits,” I’m not really sure how that translates. It used to be you had a platinum record or you didn’t; you had a No. 1 record or you didn’t. The music business has changed so much. So I want to ask: How do YOU measure success?

I always said that if I can pay my bills and do something I love, I’m going to work hard at whatever my job is in this life. And so to be able to work hard at something that I’m truly passionate about, as far as music goes that’s successful for me.

I’m always trying to get better, and have goals, but success in a whole other way, lately, has really … my kids are just growing up so fast, and any chance that I feel like I’m connected with them on a big, deep level or we made little hurdles as the kids are growing, every time we get to a new spot with them, that’s like my big successes in life. Feeling like I’m hopefully being a good daddy, in all the right ways.

Once a songwriter gets – let’s just say it – rich and famous, how do you continue to come up with songs that are still going to register with the common folk?

You get to new stages in life, and there’s always new stuff to write about, right? When your kid turns 17, all of a sudden there’s more stuff to write about. When your little girl turns 8, there’s new stuff to write about. When you’ve been married 13 years, there’s new stuff to write about. My songs move when my life moves.

But “Said No Country Boy Ever” doesn’t have anything to do with your kids. Tell me the origin of that one, because it’s got “hit” written all over it.

It came from a bunch of rednecks talking. I was writing with a couple of my really country buddies; we were actually writing another song. And then just in our conversation, in between lines and stuff, randomly somebody said “Shit, well, said no country boy ever.” And I said “STOP! We’re gonna stop writing this song we’re writing right now, and we are writing that one.” And it took us about 20 minutes to write. We had a ball.

And then when I was able to call my buddies Jerry and Jamey and Randy, it was so fun to be able to finally get music done together. ‘Cause we’ve been hanging out for 20 years, but we’ve never done a song all together. They all just said YES, like immediately.

You’ve got an album coming out?

I do. We turned it in already, but they’re talking first of the year, Spring. I’m not sure. It’s kind of whatever Curb says.

Another relatively new thing is putting out a lot of singles long before the album drops.

We’re doing that, yes. We’ll be putting out songs every month or two, and just kinda letting everybody hear the music.

These days, people want to hear music, you know. And they want to hear it now. I like getting music out no matter how it gets done. I mean, I love making an album album, a piece of art. But it’ll eventually all be back together, and somebody can go listen to it like that. But I just love being able to get music out as soon as I can.

This album will have the singles “Cry” and “Said No Country Boy Ever”?

Oh yeah, they’ll both be on there, and you know what? Since it’s gonna be pushed back a little bit, I’ve written a couple new songs. I might even add some more to it.

One last question I often ask successful artists: How do you avoid getting complacent, phoning it in because you believe everything you do will automatically be a hit?

I’m always aiming for over the fence. I don’t get complacent when it comes to making records. I always want to make the next record better than the last. That’s always a goal for me.

It’s kind of like golf. You’re playing against yourself, the rest of your life.

It’s not easy to just put out a song and for it to be a hit. It’s a lot of work for anybody.