Stay Awhile

Album: Heartland Highway (2010)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the first single from Heartland Highway, the eighth studio album by Florida Alternative Rock Band Sister Hazel. The song was written by lead guitarist Ryan Newell and an artist named Aslyn with whom the band have toured with through the years. Both musicians are from Atlanta.
  • Newell told AntiMusic about the song: "The band worked up all of the songs on our new record in our rehearsal space in Gainesville Florida. All the parts and arrangements came together in those pre-production sessions. All of the instruments were recorded at Vibe studios in Nashville. The guitars used on that song were two telecasters going through a Matchless DC-30 and a Fender Deluxe. The vocals were recorded in Gainesville with a portable pro tools rig in a hotel suite. Then back to Nashville were the song was mixed by Chip Matthews and myself. Stay Awhile has a simple, yet feel good vibe to it and it plays really well live."
  • Newell discussed the difficulties of choosing the lead single in a press release for Heartland Highway: "No one thinks about singles until the record is done. Some songs turn out better than others. Some songs are a surprise. Some songs go as expected. You never really know. For us it's really hard to judge ourselves," he said. "We're not really sure sometimes where the strength lies on our record. So we definitely rely on outside opinions. We play it for trusted friends and fans from the past and management is definitely involved. As far as the band, if we had to pick it 100 percent ourselves I think we'd still be trying to decide. It's kind of like giving yourself a haircut, you don't really know what it looks like, you have to have someone else give you a third person opinion."

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