Blake Shelton will try to score the 27th No. 1 single of his career with the release of “Hell Right” on Aug. 16.
The new tune, which features vocals from Trace Adkins, was penned by David Garcia, Brett Tyler and Michael Hardy, who is one of the co-writers behinds Blake’s most recent No. 1 hit, “God’s Country.”
“The first time I ever heard ‘Hell Right,’ [producer] Scott Hendricks sent it over to me—and we had pretty much decided that we were finished recording for a while, and I wasn’t even thinking about it,” says Blake. “But he said that Hardy had written a song and he wanted me to hear it, so with the success of ‘God’s Country’ and just knowing how talented that guy is, I thought, ‘Man, I better at least listen to it even though I don’t see myself going in and recording.’ About three-quarters of the way through the song, I decided, ‘Oh, my god, I’m not done recording. I’ve gotta go cut this song. It’s just so much fun and just so infectious. It seems like something that would be great to have out this summer, like, let’s do this thing, let’s get it out now.’ It’s one of the reasons that I’ve been so excited about not releasing an album because it’s awesome to be able to react to great songs and just get em out there to the fans.”
Blake invited longtime friends Trace Adkins to add his baritone vocals to the tune, much like he did for 2009 No. 1 hit, “Hillbilly Bone.”
“I decided it would be great to have Trace Adkins on this [song] just because he’s got that low, deep, big voice and he’s so great at the ad-lib stuff,” says Blake. “He just brings a certain quality to any recording that nobody else can touch. The guy’s got so much personality in his voice and the way he sings, and I still think that he’s one of the most underrated country artists out there, so I called him and asked if he would be on the record with me and he said something that was close to ‘hell right,’ but it was a different cuss word.”
“Hell Right” will be released at 12 a.m. on Aug. 16.
