By Emily Miller

REXBURG — Michael Britt, lead guitarist for country supergroup Lonestar, says performing with the band is the most fun it’s ever been. 

“It’s not ‘make or break’ anymore,” he says. “We’re a little older and very experienced. We’ve played together so long it’s like a family. The crowd sees that we’re having fun, and they really feed off that. Most of our shows lately are just going awesome.”

Lonestar will perform Thursday night 7:30 p.m. at the Brigham Young University-Idaho Hart Auditorium as part of the university’s Center Stage Performing Arts Series. Tickets are available here. 

The show will be a fun one for Lonestar fans, as they’re touring with songs from their new album, “Ten to 1.” The album is a collection of the bands’ number one hits, re-recorded and featuring their new lead singer Drew Womack. In 2021, Womack, the former frontman of Sons of the Desert, joined Britt and other longtime band members Dean Sams and Keech Rainwater, continuing the musical legacy started over 30 years ago. 

Britt says that in Lonestar’s early days, they never knew which songs were going to hit and which were going to miss, but for this album and tour, they’ve whittled it down to the songs they know the fans love. 

“Usually when you make a record, the songs are kinda new to you,” he says. “You don’t have anything to judge them by. You just have a demo or something. You wonder if they’re ever going to be hits.”

But not this time. Britt says most of the work producing the new album was figuring out how to freshen up some older songs and make big songs even bigger. He says the musicians’ techniques and styles have changed over the years, but playing the old familiar tunes they’ve played thousands of times was a lot of fun to record. 

“We just had a good time making it,” he says. “I don’t want to say it was easy, but it just kinda fell into place.”

Britt counts “Amazed,” “What About Now” and “My Front Porch” as his personal favorites to play. 

“‘Amazed’ is always a big one, just because it touches so many people, so that’s one of my favorites,” he says. 

There are a couple songs that Britt says have recently grown on him: “Mr. Mom” and “Come Crying to Me.”

“They’ve started to become some of my favorites,” he says. “Drew has so much personality, he makes me really think that song (Mr. Mom) is a fun song again.”

Britt says it’s the band’s first show in Rexburg, but that east Idaho audiences have always been great. 

“Every time we’ve done a show up there it’s always been pretty good,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s the area or what but we just seem to do pretty well up there.”

Britt expects the crowd to enjoy themselves from start to finish. 

“There’s not a lull in the show at all,” he says. “And we do throw in a couple other things that the crowd might not expect.”

In their three decades together, Lonestar has racked up 22 top 10 singles, including 10 number one hits. Their 1999 quadruple platinum album “Lonely Grill” had four of those number one hits, including the mega-crossover-hit “Amazed,” which spent 11 weeks at number one on the country charts and made it to the top spot on the all-genre charts, as well. They’re the recipients of several ACM and CMA awards and have sold over 10 million albums.

Britt says he’s not sure they have another 30 years to go, but they’re not done yet. He says they still feel that “creative bug,” and they want to continue to make new music with Womack at the helm. 

Having been together over 30 years, Britt fully embraces the fact that, for many, Lonestar is a nostalgia band. They plan to cater to those longtime fans with a fun, high-energy show that will take fans back to the good ol’ days. 

“We just want people to go and have fun and forget about all the boring stuff they have to do every day,” he says. “We’ll just go and have fun.”