Chris Janson Gets Personal: The Inspiration Behind His Biggest Hits

Repping the great state of Missouri, Chris Janson will be Backstage Country’s Elaina Smith’s co-host from August 4-8! The singer-songwriter will be sharing stories behind the songs and his music throughout the week. He'll also be spilling some behind-the-scenes secrets about his latest single, “Me & A Beer.”  

Smith shared that she found the first part of the song, “Me & A Beer”, hilarious and wanted to find out about Janson’s experience writing it. He said it started with a conversation with his wife: “She has a great ear for music. And she says, ‘Man, I wish you could just go. How hard is it to write another 'Fix A Drink' and 'Good Vibes?’ And I said, ‘I mean, honestly, songs like that for me are harder to write than the ones that are more maybe biopic or more storyteller, things like that, those kinds of songs come naturally to me.’ Songs like ‘Me and a Beer,’ ‘Fix a Drink,’ ‘Good Vibes,’ and ‘Find Me a Boat’ didn't come as natural to me. When you look at them now, they're giant radio smash hits, but they're almost so simple that you can't think that simple sometimes. It's weird.”  

He added, “Everybody had the same mission: to write something in between ‘Fix a Drink,’ and ‘Good Vibes,’ and that was the goal. I think we just nailed it right on the head, and me and a beer, and then you know, dot, dot, dot, can. It is a pretty clever thing, and the cool thing about it is that I looked up through all streaming services and radio singles from the past. One thing I'm most proud of with my hit singles is that if you look at all my titles, even ‘Fix a Drink,’ or ‘Good Vibes,’ or ‘Buy Me a Boat’ especially or ‘Drunk Girl’ or ‘Holdin’ Her,’ any of these songs that had never been written before.”  

Janson continued, “They're very authentic to me, and so was ‘Me & A Beer.’ I could not believe it. I could [not] believe that someone had not written that a good million times. But they hadn't, so we went with it. It felt like a hit single.”  

Janson admitted that “The Bride” was a “really easy song to write.” He shared, “My buddy Mitch and co-writer, longtime collaborator on a lot of my hits, has said, ‘Man, you always call Kelly your bride. Why don't we just write that?’ So, I thought, ‘Well, hell yeah!’ So, we did. I mean, when you're in love with someone for real, you love them for everything, and she has just always been my favorite.”  

He continued, “I was in love with her from the second I saw her. I've written about those multiple times in songs and had multiple hits about really the same subject matter, but she's easy to write about. She was the muse for the song.”  

Whether he’s singing about his wife or simple joys, Janson always finds a way to make his stories hit home. Don’t miss his latest single, “Me & A Beer.” Give it a listen here.