Good things often come in twos, as the members of emerging country duo 2 Lane Summer are certainly aware.
Just a few years back, Joe Hanson and Chris Ray had each relocated to Nashville from their respective hometowns and were working solo, playing writers’ nights and hoping for footholds in Music City. They hadn’t met until they showed up for a collaborative songwriting session, along with several other tunesmiths. But something clicked between the two that auspicious day that just felt right, almost like it was fated to happen.
“We don’t believe in coincidences,” says Hanson. “We feel like God’s hand is on everything.”
Their musical merger folded together their shared influences from country artists including Keith Urban, Brooks & Dunn, Florida-Georgia Line, Randy Travis and Alan Jackson. Add Contemporary Christian acts like Chris Tomlin and Casting Crowns—a nod to the church-music roots shared by both Hanson and Ray—then stir in some sweet harmonies and emotional honesty, add a dollop of Michael Jackson’s smooth grooves, and you’ve got the foundation for what would become 2 Lane Summer.
After that first meeting, they started kicking around song ideas, putting their voices together and realizing they had an undeniable synergy. “Joe would pick up a guitar and sing, and I would start harmonizing,” says Ray, remembering how they would intuitively layer their tones. “It just blended very naturally. We were like, dude, this is good. Let’s record something and see what happens.”
“We knew we had something special,” adds Hanson. “It wasn’t official yet, but we knew we wanted to do this journey together.”
But as they launched a few songs and mashups for streaming, they realized something was missing—they didn’t yet have a name.
Hanson grew up in Naperville, Illinois, playing drums for his church’s contemporary services and listening to his dad sing along to metal tunes. Meanwhile, Ray was absorbing his mom’s Motown faves in Jackson, Mississippi, playing organ and guitar. They each took separate roads to Nashville from different places but ended up, unexpectedly, making
music together. And voila, it hit them—the name 2 Lane Summer, so fitting for a couple of guys now on the same road, side by side, headed for sunshiny good times.
“It just popped, like we’re the two different lanes, going the same direction,” says Ray.
Fans who’ve followed them on Spotify, Instagram or TikTok have already been super-hyped about their musical direction, rich with harmonies and radiating positive vibes. “We want to bring the songs that make you feel good,” says Hanson. “Songs that make you want to throw the top down on the Jeep.”
The group’s good vibrations aren’t just musical, but also visible, as fans see a Black man and a white man working together as friends, in unity and harmony, on common ground. “It’s not something we’re trying to be flashy about,” says Hanson. “It’s like saying it without saying it. We hope that people see us and realize God created everybody equal and loves everybody. Regardless of race, gender or whatever, we can all live together.”
This new singing-songwriting twosome is getting tremendous likes from listeners with a sweet tooth for honey-smooth harmonies and heartfelt love ballads—like the songs comprising their debut Quartz Hill Records EP, due out March 28. The first song release from the EP is a new piano-led version of the duo’s highest-streamed track to date, the body positive, everyday love song “Eyes That Ain’t Yours.”
“That’s a tune for the women in our lives who sometimes don’t realize how beautiful they are,” explains Hanson. “But they might if they could just see themselves through someone else’s eyes.”
Another EP highlight will be a re-recorded acoustic version of fan favorite “Till the Day That I Die,” a pledge of lifelong romantic love that feels like a wedding song for the ages.
“I think we just wanted to write a love song,” says Ray. “Something every guy wants to say to his girl, his wife, his woman. What could be stronger than loving someone until death?”
Love songs come easy, they agree, when you’re in love. Hanson has been married now for going on two years, and Ray has a sweetheart and plans to get engaged. “There’s a level of authenticity we have because we’re living it,” says Hanson. “It’s just an expression of how we feel.” Ray points out that they’re about more than just love songs, though. “You come to a 2 Lane Summer show, you’re gonna get everything, a full-course meal.” As Hanson quips, “Like going to a Golden Corral!”
Hanson notes that whenever they’re about to take the stage and make music, they feel it: “It never fails to hit us,” he says. “We get fired up—we were made to do this.”
