Dwight Yoakam Reveals That He Postponed the Release of ‘Brighter Days’ by ‘About Six Months’ to Accommodate a Last-Minute Post Malone Collaboration

It has been nearly a decade since Dwight Yoakam dropped his last album, Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars. Tomorrow (November 15), he’ll break that streak with Brighter Days. However, the 14-track collection would have been out earlier this year but Yoakam pushed back the release date to add a Post Malone collaboration to the tracklist.

Yoakam released “I Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye (Bang Bang Boom Boom)” as the lead single from Brighter Days in September. In a recent interview with Billboard, the “Fast As You” singer revealed that the song was a late addition to the album.

[RELATED: Dwight Yoakam Teams up With Post Malone for First New Song in 9 Years, Announces New Album ‘Brighter Days’]

Dwight Yoakam on Postponing His Album Release for Post Malone

In his conversation with Billboard, Dwight Yoakam revealed that he finished Brighter Days last year. Then, just as he and his team were preparing to launch the album, Post Malone asked him if he’d like to collaborate. The unexpected invitation came while they were rehearsing their performance of Yoakam’s “Little Ways” at the Stagecoach festival.

“I had literally finished the album a week and a half earlier and I was unaware that he had done the F-1 Trillion album at that time,” Yoakam told the publication. “I knew he was doing stage shows and I knew something was afoot about duets he was doing, but I didn’t know…what it was all about,” he added.

After Malone asked him if he’d like to record something together, Yoakam wrote “I Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye” with the “Yours” singer in mind. Then, he pushed back the album’s release date by about six months. “We rescheduled the album release because we decided it was something we wanted to put on the album,” Yoakam explained.

While the lead single from Brighter Days marks the first time Malone and Yoakam recorded together, it is far from their first collaboration. They performed together for the first time on Yoakam’s SiriusXM radio show in 2018. More recently, they’ve shared the stage several times. Earlier this year, Malone joined the “Guitars, Cadillacs” singer at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles to perform a handful of classics including “It Won’t Hurt,” “Little Ways,” and “Fast As You.”

Featured Image by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for GQ Men of the Year 2019