Logan Mize‘s new album, Welcome To Prairieville is available now.
Before you hit the road looking for the Prairieville mentioned in the album, just know that you’re not going to find it on any map.
Logan shares that he first started writing tracks to this project a decade ago to escape the daily routine of songwriting in Nashville, “I started writing this 2011 so, ‘Welcome to Prairieville’ was the first song I wrote…and so I made up a fictitious town and started writing songs about it. When I’d get burnt out on Music Row, I’d for fun, just be like, ‘What’s going on in Prairieville today?'”
Being a Midwest guy himself, from Clearwater, Kansas, it was kind of natural for Logan to set the fictitious town of Prairieville in that same area of the country – but when it comes to the songs on the album, Logan says, “I wanted it to be really universally accessible. You know, whether you’re living in Brooklyn, New York or you’re living in Brule, Nebraska. It can still make sense for you and so I took a lot of the very like Midwest specific stuff out of there because I wanted to this thing to have reach…you know, I want it to hit a lot of people”
Logan adds, “So I kind of just picked and choose the songs that I thought had that character to them so it’s really more of a thematic record I guess, but it’s more me than it is about the town, I think.“
Welcome to Prairieville track listing:
1. “George Strait Songs” (writers: Blake Chaffin, Logan Mize)
2. “Welcome To Prairieville” (writers: Blake Chaffin, Logan Mize)
3. “River Road” (writers: Blake Chaffin, Logan Mize, Tyler Johnson)
4. “Wine at the Church, Beer at the Bar” (writers: Blake Chaffin, Logan Mize, Jason Blaine)
5. “Follow Your Heart” (writers: Lynn Hutton, Logan Mize)
6. “I Need Mike” (writer: Blake Chaffin)
7. “If You Get Lucky” (writers: Blake Chaffin, Logan Mize, Daniel Agee)
8. “Tell the Truth” (writers: Blake Chaffin, Logan Mize)
9. “We Ain’t Broke” (writers: Blake Chaffin, Logan Mize)
10. “I Still Miss You” (writers: Blake Chaffin, Logan Mize, Jill Martin)
11. “It’s About Time” (writer: Logan Mize)
When it comes to the album, Logan says, “This is the proudest I’ve ever been of a project. It’s been a long time in the making – the concept has been there, and it’s morphed and changed throughout the years, but this was the first time I finished recording a project, and I felt like we did everything we wanted to do, so this is something I couldn’t be more excited about.”
One of the things that he wanted to do, and did, was change the actual sound of his recordings. Logan and his team turned the clock back on technology and captured the music of Welcome to Prairieville on analog tape, instead of digital – a decision that could actually affect Logan’s future projects as well, “When you hear the drums on the tape machine…there’s no going back. There’s no like ‘Ah, roll Pro Tools in here’ and just now it’s like ‘Oh, wow,’ that’s the difference that it makes when you just physically have an analog tape rolling and so…I don’t know if I can go back at this point. It’s just subtle differences but they make a huge difference”
When you see the title Welcome To Prairieville you might think this an album that stays in a glossy, nostalgic lane, but that’s not the case, Logan says, “There’s a lot of hopeful moments, you know because there’s a dark side to it as well, it’s not all Norman Rockwell small town happiness. It exposes the dark side of it too…especially with ‘I Need Mike’ and even ‘Tell The Truth’ a little bit, it’s not all the fun happy feel good stuff you know it’s like hard lessons in life that you’re going to learn.”
In the end, Logan shares, “I just hope people honestly enjoy it and I hope they can take away something meaningful out of it, but most importantly I just hope it connects with their life and it’s a piece of art they can live with and enjoy for years to come.”
Welcome to Prairieville from Logan Mize is available now.
Photo Credit: Sydney Davidson