Chris Young Hints There Are Plenty of Special Guests on Upcoming New Album

Chris Young just released “Raised on Country,” the debut single from his upcoming eighth studio album. The record, which Young plans to release later this year, includes a few special guests, although Young refuses to divulge who will join him on the project.

“I think there’s a lot of stuff that I really allowed to be totally me and also totally us, and there are a couple outside songs that I fell in love with,” Young shared with PopCulture.com at a recent media event. “There’s a lot of guests on this record that nobody really knows about yet.”

Young wrote “Raised on Country” with Corey Crowder and Cary Barlowe, and knew instantly it was a hit, and the cornerstone for his next set of tunes.

“I was just like, ‘I want to play this right now!’” Young recalled after hearing the demo for “Raised on Country” for the first time. “I felt like that about every song that’s on this record, whether it’s ‘Raised on Country,’ whether it’s the song I was just talking about, ‘Drowning,’ which is about, for each one of us, someone that’s passed away. A guy that was a best friend to me, who’s no longer around; it’s the only funeral I ever sung at, is the guy that I was thinking about while we wrote this song.”

Young’s previous single, “Hangin’ On,” became his 11th chart-topping single, a fact he no longer takes for granted.

“There is something that is so incredibly special about the fact that we get to sit down every day and create,” reflected the singer. “There’s a lot of conversation going on in a lot of different places, in a lot of different forms about how important it is for us to have songwriters and for songwriters to have a voice and be seen, and be respected … I really do think this is the best record I’ve ever made.”

Young is happy to talk about all things music, but he made a deliberate decision years ago to keep his romantic life to himself – a decision he has never wavered from, at least not yet.

“I know it drives people nuts, but that was a conscious decision I made several years ago,” Young told PEOPLE. “I tell people when I’ve been dating somebody before, but I also do like to keep my private life private. Anytime there’s a really good break up, I’m like, ‘Well, she broke my heart. It’s time to go write an album!’”

Download “Raised on Country” on iTunes.

Photo Credit: Getty images/CBS Photo Archive