LOCASH Talks Bringing ‘Home’ a No. 1 Hit, New Album ‘Bet The Farm’: ‘We Celebrate the Wins, But Then We Put the Chips Back In’

As it gears up to release its fifth studio album Bet The Farm on Friday (April 18), country duo LOCASH is celebrating a two-week No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart with “Hometown Home.”

That milestone is significant, given that it marks LOCASH’s first No. 1 on its own label Galaxy Label Group, with “Hometown Home” also being its debut release for the label. The duo launched Galaxy in 2024, in partnership with Studio2Bee Entertainment, led by Skip Bishop and Butch Waugh, with BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville handling distribution for the label.

LOCASH’s Preston Brust and Chris Lucas co-wrote “Hometown Home” with Zach Abend and Andy Albert, with production by Jacob Rice. It has been nearly a decade since LOCASH previously summitted on the Country Airplay chart, in 2016 with “I Know Somebody.” While “Hometown Home” has spent two weeks atop the Country Airplay chart, the duo says it is still holding strong.

“We were just talking about how well it’s still testing at radio, and we’re not in a hurry to take the foot off the gas on this one,” Brust tells Billboard via Zoom. “Sometimes you get a No. 1 and you just kind of let go quickly and go to the next single, but [their fellow label execs] were like, ‘If we could give you any advice, just let this one breathe a little bit, because we’re sitting in evergreen status.’ We definitely had Skip and Butch guiding us and [BMG president of Frontline Recordings for The Americas Jon] Loba is always one call away for us, so we did help guide it. We saw the research kept coming back positive, which — you can’t ask for better than that.”

Billboard spoke with Brust and Lucas about the success of “Hometown Home,” their new album and what is ahead for their Galaxy Label Group.

Some artists want to court radio, and some don’t. Did you initially plan to take “Hometown Home” to radio?

Brust: Definitely. We released it on DSPs and then went to radio very quickly. It’s kind of tongue-in-cheek when I say we were born at radio; that’s where Chris and I cut our teeth and began our journey and created all these real friendships and relationships. We’ve been on a few labels over the years, and I remember someone at a different label, a long time ago, said, ‘Those guys aren’t your friends — they’re not really your friends.’ And I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa. No, these folks really are our partners and our friends.’ Radio’s always been important to us, and so are the DSPs. It all works together. These relationships are real, and they reach beyond just the songs — we get to know each other’s families and about their lives.

You have an “Easter Egg Hunt” happening that involves fans finding clues in your album cover. What is the story behind that?

Brust: Chris and I both have 9-year-old daughters and other kids as well, but they’re really Taylor Swift fans. I mean, just love Taylor and when she comes out with an album, our kids love it. They’re digging in, they’re trying to find the Easter eggs and [figuring out] what does it all mean? They have fun with it, and so I was like, “Why not us?” So we hid 16 things that we love, and that ties in with a song on the album called “Things We Love.” Once the listener finds all 16, they register themselves into a drawing and the winner gets a free LOCASH concert at their house or backyard. They win that concert.

How did you decide on Bet The Farm as the title of the album?

Lucas: We were trying to find the name of the album, couldn’t find the name of the album, and it had to be turned in like yesterday. Preston gets a text message with a song start of “Bet the Farm,” and we ended up finishing it in like two days — and we told our team, “Hold off, I know we turned in the album, but let’s wait until this song is finished,” and we turned that in. It says everything about what we’ve done in our career: we celebrate the wins, but then put our chips back in and we bet the farm again.

You interpolate Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” on the song “Isn’t She Country.” How did that come about, and what was it like getting the approval of Stevie and his team?

Lucas: We were on the bus and had some writers [Rob Pennington and Forrest Finn] out with us, just trying to write songs for the album. It was like 11 at night and we had just come offstage. We started writing it, not thinking it was going to be on the album. We were just having a good time and Rob [Pennington] started strumming guitar and singing “Isn’t she country, isn’t she real small town?”

We were just changing the words as we went, and it wasn’t really writing a song — just rewriting some lyrics and giving it a country flavor. So we ended up recording it. We had to get Stevie and his team’s approval, and it took maybe two or three months. But it feels so cool to have Stevie and his team’s blessing on this — because music is a serious thing, and when a song has been written, you don’t want to mess it up.

Preston, you’re wearing a [Contemporary Christian artist] Forrest Frank hat on this Zoom call. Would you ever do a CCM collaboration?

Brust: I went to the Forrest Frank show [in Nashville, Tennessee] with Jordan Feliz. We went backstage, and I got to shake Frank’s hand and tell him he did a great job. He’s a really humble guy, and it was a good night. We want to do [a CCM collaboration] so bad, because a lot of our music is positive already, and it just puts people in a good place — so we’re looking or the right thing. I was talking to the Elevation [Rhythm] folks and talking to Jordan [Feliz], so you just never know when the time might be right. If the song is right and it feels like the right project, we’ll jump all over it.

In addition to your own hits, you’ve written hit songs such as Tim McGraw’s “Truck Yeah” and Keith Urban’s “You Gonna Fly.” Whether it’s an outside cut or one you had a hand in writing, how do the two of you decide what to record, if one of you likes a song more than the other?

Brust: It’s a little tricky, because there are certain songs that each of us gravitate towards — and for different reasons, because music is so subjective to mood and opinion, and that can change daily. So, you have a pile of songs that are important to Chris and important to me and we talk it out. And then sometimes you record them and see how they sound. And then there are times when, if one of us isn’t feeling a song, instead of putting it in a “no” pile, I’ll put it in a “Play this for him again in three months” pile. And that’s worked from time to time. There was a song called “Til The Wheels Fall Off” on an album a couple of years ago, and it became one of our favorite songs in the end. So you just never know.

What advice do you have for artists wanting to make it in the industry?

Brust: I think it’s important that artists understand that we need deal-makers, not deal-breakers at the table. And if we want to get down the road together, we have to find ways to make sure that everyone’s going to have a shot at winning together. Chris and I really learned that early on. We went into our first negotiation like, “Oh man, we’ve read all the books. We know what to do. We’ve watched all the scary stories on Behind the Music on VH1. We’re not going to get screwed.”

And sometimes you just have to take a step back and say, “How are we all going to do this together? How can we win?” With Galaxy, even though we are the CEOs and with Skip and Butch, we did have to sign ourselves to that label and we had to give up a few things to sign with our own label, because that’s what it’s all about.

Are you looking at signing more artists to Galaxy Label Group right now?

Lucas: We’ve got four or five artists we are really digging. One is an alternative rock band, one is a Christian artist, and then a few country artists and we’ve had initial talks with them. But they knew we wanted to get “Hometown Home” as high as we could first, so now it’s time to have those meetings. It’s exciting, because we just want to best serve the artists. We know where the pitfalls are, and we’ve stepped into all the quicksand over the 20 years we’ve been in town. We want to help them get the best possible project that means something to them out to the listeners.