Florida Georgia Line ‘Here’s to the Good Times’ Album Keeps Buddies Close

Florida Georgia Line purposely took their time completing the debut CD, Here's to the Good Times. The duo, comprised of Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard, had already achieved a respectable -- and growing -- fanbase, thanks in part to two EPs they released (Anything Like Me and It'z Just What We Do) before signing with their record label, Republic Nashville. So when it came time to do their first full-length album, the pair wanted to make sure the disc reflected their vision as artists before they shared it with fans.

"We have a lot of different influences, and we really wanted to capture who we are as people," Brian explains to The Boot. "With the first record out, we wanted our listeners and our fans to know who we really are. I think with all of our influences, we find as we write and we pick songs, it's pretty diverse and pretty all over the place. It's cool to have a song way out in left field and a song way out in right field, and be able to do what we love, whatever that is."

The twosome included five songs on the project that they didn't write, but felt it important to include several tunes they penned as well.

"Writing is how we got our start," Tyler notes. "That's how we first started doing our thing was writing songs. At the same time, from day one, if there are songs out there that we fall in love with, we said, 'Hey, I don't think we would have ever thought of that or would have been able to write that, we have to have it.' Fortunately the songs that we cut that we didn't write are some of our best friends that wrote it. If you didn't look at the liner notes, you wouldn't know that we didn't write it. We have great buddies that are great songwriters. Rodney Clawson, Craig Wiseman and Chris Tompkins. A couple other guys are on the record, too, that are just some of the best in Nashville. [The album] kind of expresses who we are as buddies and people. Those are the songs we want on the record. Songs that we fall in love with that, as we're singing them or hearing them, it just feels like Florida Georgia Line."

Here's to the Good Times, which includes their No. 1 hit, "Cruise," scored the best-selling debut of the week, landing at No. 3 on the country charts. Florida Georgia Line will wrap up their role as an opening act on Jake Owen's CMT on Tour: The Summer Never Ends Saturday night (Dec. 15) in Vero Beach, Fla. In January they'll join up with Luke Bryan to serve as the opener on his Dirt Road Diaries tour. Follow their tour schedule here.