Parking Lot Party

Brice lightens thing up with this party track. He told the story of the song in publicity materials: "We were pretty far into the album, and we had all of these deep songs that meant something and mattered. And we realized we needed something fun that people could sit on their tailgates, drink a beer, relax, and rock out with, especially for the live shows. So I had a writing appointment with my buddy, Rhett Akins, and his son, Thomas Rhett, and Luke Laird. Luke got on his computer and had this groove going and we just played along and had a blast writing this thing. It has a little bit of early '90s rock influence, like a grungy Weezer thing going on."

This song came about on a day when Thomas Rhett wasn't feeling anything Rhett Akins and Luke Laird were writing, so the trio decided to grab a bite to eat. "I kind of thought it was going to be a wasted day," recalled Akins to Roughstock. "So we went and got something to eat, came back and pulled up in the parking lot. Just as we did, Lee Brice comes walking out of the front door of the office we were at. So we sat in the parking lot with Lee for a minute. Lee goes, 'Man, do y'all have about an hour and a half, maybe two at the most, to try and write a song?' We were like, 'Yeah! Because Thomas Rhett's not into anything we're doing! [laughs] Let's get on something!'

"We asked him what he needs," continued Akins, "and he goes, 'Every song I sing is so serious and ballad driven. I need something fun, and I need something rockin' for my live show ... you know ... just sitting in the parking lot, drinking beers or something.' He goes, 'Give me about 10 minutes. I need to call my manager, and I'll be right in.'

"So me, Luke and Thomas Rhett went into the office," continued Akins. "I said, 'Lee was talking about drinking beer in parking lots ... what about 'Parking Lot Party'?' Luke turns on a beat on his drum machine, and we just sat there and pounded out this melody. By the time Lee got off the phone with his manager, we had the chorus almost completely written. Lee came in and was like, 'that's exactly what I need to do ... something fun and crazy like that!' We sat there and wrote this song with him. We put fake crowd noise in there, and I even got the microphone and was like, '96.5 ... this is so-and-so, and we're out here with Lee Brice in a parking lot party!' Just goofing off and cutting up, just to be stupid."

Akins explained the song's meaning to Roughstock: "We wrote it basically about people sitting in the parking lot before a concert," he noted. "Half of the people don't even have tickets. They're just out there on the tailgate drinking beer and playing cornhole and stuff. Some people don't even go in for the opening act [laughs]. They wait until 7 or 8 o'clock til they actually go in the concert, so the whole song is just about people in parking lots having a party before a big show. It was just us going in saying let's have fun."