Lee Brice Talks Clemson Football, Sausage Perlo, and More

Country star Lee Brice talks with host Sid Evans on Biscuits & Jam about his grandfather's oil tank gas grills, shifting from football to music while in college, and the stories behind his hits "I Drive Your Truck" and "Hey World."

Get to Know Lee Brice

Lee Brice was born and raised in Sumter, South Carolina, and had equal passions for sports and songwriting while attending Clemson University. When an injury officially sidelined his football career, he set his sights on Nashville in 2001 and slowly made a name for himself in Music City. With multiple ACM awards under his belt, he released his most recent album, Hey World. On the stirring title track—a duet with vocalist Blessing Offor—Lee speaks for a lot of us looking for a break from it all.

What Lee Brice Talks About in This Episode

• How to pronounce Sumter, South Carolina
• Making his own scratch biscuits and elk sausage
• His grandfather's oil tank gas grills
• Deciding between football and music
• How all you need is right at home

Quotes From Lee Brice

"The biggest part of the cooking part of my life was growing up my grandparents and every day grandma got up and she made a full—I mean, from scratch, every single day—biscuits and eggs and bacon. When you were at grandmama's house, grandaddy was up at three, going to go milk the cows. And then my daddy's daddy, Granddaddy Bryce, it was all barbecue. Not only did he cook old school like on a pit burning your own coals and just kind of doing it the old school way. But he also upped it and started building these big grills out of big oil tanks."

"My whole life, it was football or music. When I was 10 years old, I was writing songs. In my mind, as a 10-year-old, I was very serious about what I was writing and playing football was also a huge passion of mine because, number one, I loved it. But my daddy played football and he was good and he got recruited to play at Clemson, but he didn't go. ... I could have gone to a lot of other schools with better offers but Clemson was where I was going no matter what. Even when I was at Clemson, I'd go to the stairwell, and I'd sit there and play guitar and write songs for hours."

"You never know if you're going to make it as an artist or this or that. But I mean, I was writing songs and I just knew this is what I was going to do. And so it never felt scary to me to be in this town and worrying although— it was very hard and skinny times for a very, very, very long time. I still never—I just never doubted it."

About Biscuits & Jam

In the South, talking about food is personal. It's a way of sharing your history, your family, your culture, and yourself. Each week Sid Evans, Editor in Chief of Southern Living, sits down with celebrity musicians to hear stories of how they grew up, what inspired them, and how they've been shaped by Southern culture. Sid takes us back to some of their most cherished memories and traditions, the family meals they still think about, and their favorite places to eat on the road.

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Get a transcript of the full interview with Lee Brice.