Chris Young admits that he set out to be a tiny bit deceptive when he wrote “Famous Friends,” his latest hit with Kane Brown.

“It’s not what you think when you first see the title…I wanted everybody to go, ‘What is this gonna be about?'” Chris explains.

“And then when they hear the song,” he continues, “we’re really taking the hat off to all the people that might not be famous to everybody else, but they’re famous to you. They’re famous to your hometown. They’re famous to your friends. You know, it was something that we thought everybody could relate to.”

“Famous Friends” also has something in common with Chris’ most recent top-10 single, “Raised on Country,” having been co-written on the same “bus trip” with frequent collaborators Cary Barlowe and Corey Crowder.

“They’re like, ‘I mean, we could do almost the reverse idea of saying, “Hey, when you were growing up, who did you listen to?”‘” Chris recalls. “You know, ‘When you were growing up, who were your friends?’ And that was kind of how that we eventually got down to ‘Famous Friends’ as a title and putting that twist on it.”

With the duet now just a couple spots away from the top, it turned out to be some incredibly lucrative multi-tasking.

“It’s definitely the most I’ve ever gotten out of one week on the road writing while trying to perform,” Chris reflects. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually singled anything from a bus write before those two songs, and it’s the same weekend. So it’s pretty special.”

Chris’ full-length Famous Friends album arrives August 6, and includes appearances by Lauren Alaina, Mitchell Tenpenny and Dan + Shay‘s Shay Mooney.

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