As everyone knows by this point, the musician coming to Gannon University to perform is Chase Rice. If you’re like me, the announcement elicited a “Huh? Who?” response. While many (if not most) Gannon students probably heard that name and knew exactly who he was, for the benefit of myself and others like me I decided to look up Chase Rice so you don’t have to.

Immediately after beginning my research I realized why I hadn’t heard of him: He’s a country artist. While many people have a passion for country music, I do not. But putting personal preference aside, I started to read into him a little more for the greater good.

Here’s the basics: He’s a 29-year-old bro-country singer. Now, I was confused as to what defines “bro-country,” so I looked that up too. Here’s what I found: bro-country is influenced by hard rock, hip-hop and electronic music so it contains elements from those types of music.  Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, and Jake Owen are all considered bro-country artists.

Rice has become pretty big in just the past few years. His 2013 single “Ready Set Roll” got as high as 53 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  His EP of the same name got to #16 on Billboard. August of 2014  saw his first album “Ignite the Night” drop and that peaked at #1 on the country charts and #3 overall. He is also credited as a co-writer on Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” which peaked at the top of Billboard’s country list. He just recently released the first single “Whisper” off his upcoming 2016 album.

Now that the fancy numbers are out of the way, here are some cool tidbits on his personal life: out of college at UNC he worked in Hendrick Motorsport’s pit crew as a rear tire carrier for Ryan Newman. He also worked on Jimmie Johnson’s car for the Lowes team. Chase Rice also appeared on Survivor’s 21st season: Survivor: Nicaragua. He made it to the final 3 but ultimately didn’t end up winning.

After doing all this research I realized that I (and everyone else ever) have definitely heard his music on the radio. It’s all pretty mass appeal so even  non-country fans can probably get down to some Chase Rice tunes. Even if it’s not normally what you go for, the concert is  looking like it’ll be a fun time. You can find his music in basically all the same places you already find your music if you feel like giving it a listen. Who knows, it might be for you.