Photo: @thexxguy
BRELAND embraced powerful messages of “perseverance and self-belief,” with his new rendition of a timeless song on Friday (April 3).
BRELAND’s version of “Go the Distance,” from Disney’s 1997 film Hercules, appears on Main Street Country. The 5-track EP features modern country twists on classic Disney songs, following 2024’s A Whole New Sound, a successful compilation album of pop-punk Disney covers. The new country installment of the music series also includes Kane Brown and his wife, Katelyn Brown (“Beauty and the Beast” from Beauty and the Beast), Restless Road (“The Climb” from Hannah Montana: The Movie), Dasha (“She’s So Gone” from Lemonade Mouth) and Maddie & Tae (“You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan).
“I’ve always had a perspective that country music is really just any song that tells a linear story,” BRELAND told iHeartCountry on Thursday (April 2). “And I feel like all of these Disney songs do that really well, so it makes sense to me, at least, (and) I feel like this should’ve happened years and years ago. Now, I feel like Disney needs to do a full-on country movie and get some of us in it to perform.” — “You gotta at least shoot your shot [at appearing in a movie]!” — “It means a lot to be able to be a part of this. I think all these songs sound really great, and the country renditions are true to the originals while also adding some elements that I think people will really like.”
BRELAND said he asked his sister for her input when he was choosing his song for Main Street Country. He said his sister had recently watched Hercules with her 3-and-a-half-year-old son, and “Go the Distance” quickly fell into place. BRELAND recorded his version of the song at Abbey Road Studios in London “with a 16-, 17-piece band, which included 12-piece string orchestra, and it’s just a totally different way for me to record. I’ve never done anything close to that.” The whole thing was an “emotional” experience that showed, “music is global. …I love America, proud to be here, but I also feel like this project is going to reach so many people around the world,” he said. “It’s amazing.”
“Go the Distance” “really resonates with me for a lot of reasons, but it has a lot of gospel undertones all through the soundtrack of that movie, which is kind of my upbringing,” shared BRELAND, who previously said both of his parents are gospel singers. “And then also the message of it. It’s about perseverance and self-belief, which is really what my career has been built on. It has a lot of the same themes as the title track from my debut album, Cross Country. That song is really about taking this metaphorical journey to find where you belong, and that’s exactly what ‘Go the Distance’ is about. …I put out my first single a week ago,” he continued. “I hadn’t put out any music in a year and a half. And there were a lot of moments during that time that I honestly was like, ‘what’s going to happen? How is this going to go?’ So, I feel like for me to just put that single out and be mapping out a bunch of things that are going to happen this year, this song fits into that narrative so well because I didn’t give up. I kept going.”
BRELAND’s latest single is “In My Truck,” a country anthem that uniquely samples 50 Cent’s iconic early 2000s anthem, “In da Club.” “Millennials rejoice!” BRELAND exclaimed of the back-to-back 50 Cent interpolation and Disney cover. “I feel like all these Disney songs are all so good, they’re all so well-written that for me to be able to do it and knowing that (there’s going to be) people who hear it who have a connection with the original, I want to be able to do it justice and I want people to be able to be like, ‘oh wow, this is my new favorite version of this song.’ So, we took a couple risks in the studio, but I wanted to honor the original and also kind of put my own flavor.
“Whether you’re 75 years old, whether you’re 3 years old, I feel like everyone will be able to enjoy these songs because they’re all really timeless,” he continued. “They all apply to people at different parts of their lives. The way that I would’ve felt about this song as a kid, I still feel this way about this song as an adult because the themes are universal.”
Listen to BRELAND’s “Go the Distance” here: