“Body Like a Back Road” singer Sam Hunt's recent Twitter silence and lack of live show announcements for 2019 has led to plenty of speculation about a follow-up to his multi-platinum 2014 debut album, Montevallo. Hunt backed up those rumors in an interview with DJs from SiriusXM’s The Highway channel, conducted before his Saturday (April 27) set at the 2019 Stagecoach Festival.

“I’ll start recording the best of the last 10, 11, 12 months ... in July and August, and I should have a record there,” Hunt shares. “The songs are showing up. I would like to have two or three more between now and July, but for the most part, the record’s there. It's just a matter of recording it.

Hunt’s 90-minute Stagecoach set, chock-full of career-spanning material and featuring the stories behind the songs as banter, was the first of only three planned live appearances in 2019. Hunt’s website lists a May 5 appearance at the Off the Rails Country Music Fest in Frisco, Texas, and a June 14 stop at Country Jam in Grand Junction, Colo., as the singer’s other pre-album release live shows.

"I planned on not touring last year, and then Luke [Bryan] asked me to come out, and it was too good of an opportunity, so that's my excuse for not having new music out last year," Hunt admits. "I made a point this year [to not tour and to] get this record done come hell or high water," but plenty of shows will be on the calendar in 2020.

None of Hunt's new material made it into his Stagecoach Festival set. He warned The Highway DJs not to expect any album teasers at Stagecoach because those songs still lack live band arrangements.

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