Restless Road Says 'Everything Is Falling Into Place' With Debut EP (Exclusive)

Country trio Restless Road released their debut self-titled EP in February 2020, officially introducing themselves to fans seven years after getting their start on The X Factor in 2013. Made up of Zach Beeken, Garrett Nichols and Colton Pack, Restless Road started with Beeken and Pack and original member Andrew Scholz, who was later replaced by Nichols. The solidified trio began writing together and has since written hundreds of songs, four of which made it onto their debut EP.

"It all really just felt natural," Beeken told PopCulture.com "To this day we're writing songs every day in this isolation, and everything is just really falling into place with songwriting and stuff. I think we just know what we want to do. And everything's just really kind of getting better over time. It was all very natural from the start."

Restless Road is fully modern country, but their classic harmonies call back to traditional groups the trio cites as influences. Their EP covers familiar topics like young love and leaving home and was helmed by "mastermind" producer Dan Huff, who the group credits with making it all a very "seamless" process. "We're three different guys that we obviously grew up in very different places, and we had very different experiences and childhoods and whatnot," Nichols said. "And I think that our sound is we're just three guys who came together who have these different influences, but at the end of the day we love country music: singing it, writing it, performing it."

One thing the members of Restless Road pride themselves on is sharing lead vocal duties, something they noted was a decision based on groups like the Oak Ridge Boys and the Eagles. "All these super iconic groups that made harmonies what they are," Pack explained. "But at the same time, what made them super unique was that a lot of the times they'll turn it off leads, so that's something that we love to do. We each have different, unique and distinct voices, so we like doing that, but then also coming together to get the harmony."

The EP includes the group's current single, "Take Me Home," which is based on the John Denver classic "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and includes a guest spot from Kane Brown, who signed the trio to his label and invited them to open for him on his Worldwide Beautiful Tour.

"We knew we needed to get into the studio and start working on an EP, and we've written hundreds of songs since we've been a band," Beeken said of the song. "We were in the studio recording a couple of those, and last minute Kane sent us this song 'Take Me Home' and we fell in love with it immediately with just how familiar it sounded. Growing up I listened to John Denver and my mom really introduced me to him growing up. And Colton's from West Virginia, so that song totally runs through his veins and we just totally fell in love with it. We were like, 'Okay, and this will be a perfect opportunity for us to kind of really make this a whole full circle moment and for you to hop on the song,' and that's what he did. We couldn't be more happy with how it turned out."