Lonestar keeps making music that grabs fans by the heart

After more then two decades as country music chart-toppers, the members of Lonestar are still adding firsts to the group’s resume. The Nashville-based quartet is playing in Hawaii for the first time this weekend. Guitarist Michael Britt, who visited the islands once as a tourist, says the group is “so stoked” to finally have concert dates here.

“Some of the guys have never been there,” Britt said recently, calling from his home in Nashville. “It’s kind of a treat for us because we get to go there and work and play at the same time.”

The Hawaii shows — Lahaina today, Aloha Tower on Saturday — come during a “slow time of year” for the tight-knit group. It’s the time of year that they leave Nashville for a few shows “every other weekend” and enjoy doing “parent stuff” with their families in between.

“The kids are in school and we can take ’em back and forth to school when we need to and go to soccer games and stuff — normal kind of parent stuff now, and then summer time we get really busy and we’re gone for a couple of weeks at a time,” Britt said.

The group is here to support its current album, “Never Enders,” which was released a year ago. The title song is an inspirational celebration of never-give-up optimism and hard work, and is one of nine radio-worthy songs written or co-written by various members of the group. Another, “My Own Hometown,” describes the experiences of getting older, a third is a thoroughly modern account of online dating, and several others are classic love songs that describe the magic of loving relationships in catchy and memorable style.

“We think it’s a great album,” Britt said. “We’d put it up with anything we’ve ever made. You should be making music because you love doing it and because these are the songs that you feel represent you at this point in your life. The fact that we’re not getting played a ton on the radio doesn’t really bother us but we realize that a lot of people aren’t gonna hear it unless they come to the shows.”

Fans come for the hits — Lonestar’s debut single, “Tequila Talking,” was a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Country Singles chart; their second single, “No News,” topped the chart, as did eight more. Four of the group’s singles have been certified gold for sales of more than 1 million copies.

Britt hopes the fans will embrace Lonestar’s new music as well

“We’re getting people who know ‘Amazed’ and ‘What About Now’ and ‘Front Porch Looking In,’ but we just want to be able to play some new stuff so they can realize that we are not just playing our greatest hits. We’re still creating music and we’re proud of what we’re doing even after all these years.”

Britt says there are “probably about 10 songs that we have to do every night,” and that leaves them with four or five that are optional. Several others “we do just because we want to.”

No Lonestar concert would be complete without “Amazed,” their turn-of-the 21st century mega-hit that became so popular that the BNA Records label released it twice. “Amazed” topped Billboard’s Country Singles chart for eight weeks in 1999 but gradually broke out as a mainstream pop chart hit and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart the following year. It was the first time a song had reached the top of both charts since the Kenny Rogers/Dolly Parton hit, “Islands in the Stream,” in 1983.

“It was something we didn’t plan on,” Britt said. “We didn’t really have any expectations of that (but) once the label started seeing it getting some A/C (Adult Contemporary) radio play I think they started pursuing it. We were so busy touring at the time that that was going on we didn’t notice. It was kind of shocking for us that is started being on all the pop charts.”

Several years later BNA released a second music video for the group’s 2001 hit, “I’m Already There,” when the song became an anthem for military families after the American invasion of Iraq.

Stability has certainly contributed to the group’s success. Lonestar came together in 1992 as a quintet — Britt (lead guitar/backing vocals), Richie McDonald (lead vocals/acoustic guitar), Keech Rainwater (drums), John Rich (bass/lead and backing vocals) and Dean Sams (keyboards/backing vocals). Rich left in 1998 and eventually became one half of the duo Big & Rich. McDonald left for a solo career in 2007; Cody Collins of the group McAlyster was Lonestar’s lead vocalist until McDonald decided to rejoin them in 2011.

Britt said McDonald’s departure came when Lonestar was “going through a lot of stuff.”

“We had been on a pretty busy hectic schedule for a good 10 years, and it was right around that time our record label was merging so Sony and BMG were all merging together in Nashville and so they were dropping artists from their rosters. We had just finished our last album under contract so we were either set to renegotiate or whatever, but we were kind of honestly a little bit burned out. Richie let us know that he wasn’t really into trying to keep going for a little bit and he wanted some time off.”

“The rest of us, we were proud of what we had done with Lonestar and we didn’t really have any other drive to do anything else. We found another lead singer and just kind of worked. We got some radio play and we made two good records. I liked it for what it was, because honestly when you put your heart and soul into something you tend to like it and be proud of it, but it just never really took off for a lot of people because without Richie’s voice a lot of people just don’t think of it as Lonestar — which I get, but we didn’t have (Richie’s voice) available to us at the time.”

Planning for Lonestar’s 20th anniversary in 2012 became the catalyst for McDonald’s return to the group.

“Ever since Richie’s been back it almost feels like he never left,” Britt said. “We’ll razz him every now and then, or he’ll make jokes about it. I think it was one of those things that was just meant to be.”

Lonestar will be touring through the summer and start working on the songs for their next album. The tour schedule includes some “parking lot acoustic shows” and shooting “some commercial-type things” for tour sponsor Tractor Supply Company.

“The cool part about where we are in our career now is that we’re not on that treadmill of just ‘gotta beat the last thing you did’ constantly, so when we go to tour now its actually more fun than it’s ever been,” Britt said. “We put this band together by just gathering five people together in a room for one day, and 25 years later four of those people are still there. It’s crazy.”