Country newcomer Chase Bryant stopped by the Taste of Country Nights studio to chat with host Sam Alex about everything from Brantley Gilbert's Let It Ride Tour to playing his guitar "upside down and backwards."

Now that Bryant's debut single 'Take It on Back' is out on country radio, he's getting to meet a lot of cool artists. Recently, he even got to talk with Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. The two hit it off and have been talking shop ever since.

"I was at lunch and one of my managers knew him pretty well, and Billy and I sat and talked for a pretty good while," he tells Alex.

“I walked up and he said he heard I wasn’t a karaoke singer, that I actually played guitar so I said, ‘Yeah that’s right,’” Bryant adds with a laugh. "So we started talking gear and stuff and we exchanged a bunch of emails just talking about gear and what we were into playing at the moment — a bunch of nerd talk, ya know.”

Bryant plays guitar, even if he does play it in an unusual way. The left-handed singer plays a right-handed guitar, but he alters it a little bit for his needs. “I’m actually upside down and backwards. This is a right-handed guitar and I play it upside down. I play it left handed," he shares.

Bryant will be taking his "upside down" guitar on tour with Gilbert beginning this month. “We’re on the Let It Ride Tour starting in the second week or third week of September. We start back home actually in Austin, Texas," he says. "We’re starting down there and it’s gonna be a blast man, I can’t wait.”

He doesn't know Gilbert, since he's only met the 'Bottoms Singer' during benefit work at St. Jude, but he will once the tour is over. And he already has great things to say about the star: "I love his music ... especially as a songwriter I really respected him.”

Sam Alex is the host of Taste of Country Nights radio, a syndicated night show which airs on more than 60 Townsquare Media Group stations nationwide.

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