Chase Wright's Debut Album 'Intertwined' Lays Down an Impressive Foundation for His Future in Country Music

Long before vaccines and pandemics and a world filled with a 'new normal,' Chase Wright spent 2018 writing songs for his 2021 album Intertwined.

"It's been a journey, that's for sure," Wright, 25, tells PEOPLE. "But it's been worth it. The passage of time can make for some good songs."

Indeed, a good number of the songs now found on Intertwined actually come from times far back, when Wright was just a kid growing up in Lebanon, Indiana.

"There wasn't anything to do back then," recalls Wright, whose teenage playlists included the likes of artists such as Keith Urban, 3 Doors Down, The Fray, Matchbox Twenty and Goo Goo Dolls. "There was the Walmart and there was the McDonald's and there was driving around the back roads." He laughs. "It's crazy how you don't really think that those things could be formative at the time. But then, you know, as I've grown up, I actually miss that sort of stuff."

Ultimately graduating from college with an economics degree, Wright ran competitive track for a total of 10 years. During his time as a freshman track star at DePauw University, he first picked up a guitar — and it was that guitar that led him to make the move to Nashville two years ago, when he made the decision to make Music City his new home. It was there that he began his trek to country music stardom.

But it was a trek interrupted by the pandemic.

"There was so much uncertainty around releasing my debut single ('My Kinda Morning') in the heart of a pandemic," says Wright, who nevertheless, has worked to snag 55 million career streams and counting to date. "Nobody had really done that, and we didn't really know what to expect, but looking back, I think it was actually a blessing that we did it that way because people had nothing else to do other than consume social media and music and watch TikTok and YouTube."

And despite the virtual nature of it all, Wright found himself, during that uneasy time, to not only establish a relationship with his fans, but almost effortlessly convey an honesty that can be heard loud and clear on the title track of Intertwined.

"I thought of the idea last Thanksgiving," Wright says of the song he co-wrote alongside Alyssa Bonagura and Jared Keim. "I had been talking to two separate friends who were both going through breakups, and they were both experiencing the same sort of issues — they had dated the person for so long that their lives were just so interconnected. And though they broke up and tried to stay separate from one another, there were still so many pieces of their lives that they couldn't separate from."

Joining him on the piano-heavy powerhouse of a ballad is Canadian pop singer/songwriter Delaney Jane.

"It was not only so beneficial to have a female writer on the song who could give us that women's perspective, but then to add a female voice on the song just made it that much more special," he says.

And then there is "Wish You'd Miss Me," whose lyrical roots pull from Wright's own experience in "a fairly toxic relationship back in college." And then there is "My Kinda Morning," Wright's favorite song on the record "just because it was from such a difficult time for me." But perhaps the one that seems most custom-made to blow things up for Wright is "Why Can't It Be Over."

"That was actually the last song that I wrote for the project," says Wright, who wrote it alongside Keim and Jerry Flowers. "And thankfully, my producer (Jared Keim) pushed me to get a little bit riskier on the production side of things and go a little bit more EDM pop, because that is a style of music that I really do listen to a lot. I feel like that's what has benefited me to this point so far. I just tend to pull in so many different types of music because I like to listen to so much."

He pauses.

"I have this vision, you know?" says Wright, who is currently out as a headliner on Tin Roof's "Nashville Hits the Roof" series, which will hit seven cities before concluding Dec. 3 in Birmingham, Alabama. "And I am committed to making this vision come to life."