Sam Hunt Says New Music Is on the Way

Sam Hunt released his sophomore album, Southside, in April 2020, and the singer is already at work on his next project. This week, he shared an update with fans, posting a photo of himself sitting in a recording studio, looking pensively at something off-camera.

“New songs coming soon,” he wrote. Speaking to RADIO.COM’s Katie & Company, Hunt gave an additional update, telling host Katie Neal that he is planning a songwriting trip next month. “We’re going to take a little retreat down to Florida in the beginning of March and write for the whole month. So, I’m excited about that. I’ve been getting ideas ready for that trip,” he said, later adding, “Now I’m planning on hopefully finishing the record or getting closer to having a full record by late spring.”

The 36-year-old revealed that he already has some songs ready for his next project thanks to his time off the road last year. “I tried to make the most of the downtime,” he said. “I was able to come up with a few songs that started to feel like the beginning of a record, and then kind of took a pause for Christmas break.”

Hunt added that 2021 has been “So far, so good.” “I’ve just been getting my day-to-day in order, eating healthier, work, trying to work out, and shake off 2020,” he shared. “The next chapter will be getting back in the studio and trying to write.” Southside contains the No. 1 singles “Kinfolks” and “Hard to Forget.” His latest single, “Breaking Up Was Easy in the ’90s,” is currently at No. 23 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart and climbing.

“Usually I like to write my own ideas for my records because I typically pull them from life in some capacity, but this was an idea that my buddy Josh Osborne had,” Hunt explained of the song. “Sometimes you’ll have an idea and you don’t know whether it’s going to work out or not until you write the song. But this was an idea that I had pretty well decided was going to go on the record, even before we wrote the song. So, I was just holding it ’til the ninth hour and we ended up writing that song just maybe a few weeks before putting out the record.”

Hunt’s first No. 1 song was 2014’s “Leave the Night On,” and while he didn’t make any big purchases after that success, there was one thing he changed. “I did start eating really good,” he recalled. “So, when I went out to restaurants, I did not fret too much about the bill…. I used to show up to (writing sessions) to write with guys that have had success…and we’d go to eat, and I’d pull out my tuna sandwich that I’d made that morning on wheat bread…my lunches were probably $2.50 a day.”