Logan Mize, a singer/songwriter from Kansas, is reminding us that country music doesn’t just have to be about the south—it’s an all-inclusive type of sound. Thursday (September 30), Mize dropped an 11-track record that expresses this sentiment and highlights his Midwestern roots.
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“The rural Midwest is just different,” Mize tells American Songwriter. “It’s more stoic and it’s understated and not as often celebrated.”
With this thought in mind, Mize sifted through the abundance of songs and lyrics he had written over the last 10 years to create his latest album. Over this last decade, Mize had often mentally escaped to a midwestern oasis when songwriting for other projects became strenuous.
“I’ve been writing on Music Row since 2006… you’re writing every day and you kind of get burned out. It’s like, I can only write so many of the same songs over and over. And I just didn’t really love that side of it. So my way of coping with it was [that] I made up a town called Prairieville based on the rural Midwest/Great Plains area. Then I based all the little characters in the town on people I grew up with, and it kind of became this little fun little thing that I’d write about,” Mize explains.
The exercise focused Mize’s songwriting style and eventually laid the foundation of Welcome To Prairieville.
When asked about the individual tracks on the record, Mize fondly explains “River Road.”
“River Road has always been a favorite of mine that I’ve written. I felt like that’s been one of my better moments in the studio because it’s complicated to write. You’re trying to take the warm and fuzzies that you get when you think about a certain time in your childhood or a certain time in your past. You’re always trying to recreate that,” Mize says. “Getting that into three minutes with three different choruses was still really difficult. But I was really happy with it when we finished it.”
Other standout tracks include “Wine at the Church, Beer at the Bar,” “George Strait Songs,” and “It’s About Time.”
Listen to Logan Mize’s Welcome To Prairieville below.
