Chase Rice: No, I wanted to actually put Jack Daniel's as one of the songwriters of that, but then I was afraid you guys would come looking for money. So I didn't want to lose some cash on it so I didn't do it.

 

Lucas Hendrickson: Chase Rice has benefited from purposeful serendipity more than once on his path of the public spotlight. An injury derailed his college football dreams, but pointed him to songwriting. Hanging with like-minded friends moved those songwriting dreams into chart-topping success, and merely listening and absorbing songs growing up informed the writing of his biggest solo effort to date, the song "Three Chords and the Truth." On this episode of Around the Barrel, we talked with the tire carrier turned hitmaker about reality TV, his Carolina roots, the merits of your own Single Barrel, and why the four words "Head Down, Eyes Up" continue to play such a big role in his life. Welcome back to Around the Barrel, the official podcast from the makers of Jack Daniel's. I'm your host, Lucas Hendrickson. Summertime is right around the corner here in the U.S., and for music fans and artists alike, that means plenty of days and nights experiencing music in so many forms, be it blasting from speakers on road trip vacations or playing it live at fairs and festivals across the country. Chase Rice's road toward playing for those fans has held plenty of twists and turns which might befit someone who went from playing college football to working on championship NASCAR pit crews, to a grueling competition reality TV show to a fast-rising country singer-songwriter. Chase seemingly wouldn't have it any other way, and embraces the authenticity such varied life experiences have given him, even when it means sometimes forgetting your omnipresent ball cap. 

 

Chase: What's up, y'all? I'm Chase Rice, I'm from Fairview, North Carolina. And I've lived in Tennessee about seven, eight years now. I'm a singer-songwriter and tour for a living. So I'm always out on the road and doing my music. 

 

Lucas: Chase Rice. Welcome to Around the Barrel.

 

Chase: Appreciate it, man. 

 

Lucas: Everybody kind of leaves their house of a day, you know doing the self frisk, making sure you get your your keys, your wallet, your phone especially these days, although while we're sitting here recording you're not wearing one, but how often are you checking to make sure that you got the hat on?

 

Chase: I, oh all the time. I mean, I wear a hat 98% of my life. And I, honestly I have no clue why I'm not wearing one today, It's kind of a rare, rare thing. But uh, I guess I just didn't feel like it, but yeah, I'm always right pocket phone, throw my keys in my left pocket, and my phone and my wallet are all one in the same, so the day that I lose that, because that'll happen one day, it's gonna be a tough one for me. But yeah, I mean I'm not real picky about how I'm looking and that's I guess that's why I wear the hat, because I don't wanna have to worry about it. And even this was like, actually that's why I'm not wearing a hat because I just got a haircut last week so I literally get out of the shower and just scruff it up and it's good to go. 

 

Lucas: In the interest of full disclosure, full head of hair, looking good. 

 

Chase: Full head of hair. I wonder if people do think I'm bald because I'm always wearing a hat. 

 

Lucas: Well, I don't know you've got the snap back thing going on so it shows that you've got a little something going in front. 

 

Chase: And I've been wearing a hat, speaking of. It's not back. I've been wearing it forwards lately, I don't know why, I just decided one day I just want to wear my hat forwards. So, must have been an outdoor show and it was sunny. I don't know.

 

Lucas: At the end of last year you released a record called "Lambs and Lions," your second full-blown studio record?  Now talk about that because it's a little complicated.

 

Chase: All artists, well most artists have that, where they put a record out on their own. I put out a record called "Dirt Road Communion," I don't know that was probably 2012, maybe even before that. And then I think "Ready Set Roll" and "Gonna Wanna Tonight" that was all on the "Ignite the Night" album, I believe that was 2014-ish. And so then after that we decided, let's not put music out for three years.  If you told me at the time that was going to happen, I wouldn't be putting a record out until 2017 I would have probably cried. I would have told you you're crazy. Yeah, we waited three years and we just put out our third, I guess official album. 

 

Lucas: Let's talk a little bit about authenticity that a lot of the pieces I'm seeing that came out around this record and as you've been touring it, starting to tour it here in 2018, a lot of that narrative when it came out, surrounding the idea of authenticity that maybe you felt like again that three year time span between those two records that you weren't being as you as you possibly wanted to be as far as your music goes, now that this record has been out for a little bit, how has that renewed push for authenticity helped your career, especially as you've been interacting with fans and getting their reaction on what this music is like?

 

Chase: Yeah, I mean, I have mixed thoughts on it. I mean during those years it was never, to clear that up, it was never some record exec telling me what I needed to do, that would not work for me. I mean there was a couple times where I was looking at signing with labels, and they kind of had that that mentality of, it just seemed like they wanted me to do something other than be myself and I was like, "Oh hell no, I'm gonna be me and that's just how it is."  Having said that I think at the time I was just so excited coming off of "Cruise" as a songwriter on that with FGL and them blowing up and those guys were good buddies from day one. And so I was like, well the success there having, that's cool, as any young writer or artist would do, especially when I was very young to that. I mean, I was probably 25 years old but to music I was extremely young, so I was probably trying to chase a little bit of just whatever's going to be successful for sure. I'm okay to admit that but the cool part about it is, it was successful. So it allowed me to have some financial freedom to kind of start living life outside of just this piece of, you know it was a dump house we were in, so I was able to get out of that but with songs like "Ready Set Roll" and "Gonna Wanna Tonight" and then we put a song called "Ride" on there which is funny because that was 3 years ago, but "Ride" has all of a sudden become my biggest song, one of them, but then we also did have we had you know touching kind of the tip of the iceberg of who I believe I am as a person and as a writer and some of the great deeper stuff that I can do like "Carolina Can," "Jack Daniel's and Jesus," that stuff, it was always there so, that was a cool record for me, the "Ignite the Night" record because it allowed me to see what I liked and what I didn't like, which is cool, at that point in your career it's the very beginning, why not just go from there? And that's kind of the mentality I took and throughout the three years. I probably wrote three different albums and then I decided let's put out these ten songs because I believe that these are the ten songs that represent who I am right now, and I'm taking that same approach for my next album, I'm writing another record right now and we got "Three Chords and the Truth" as the first single off of it and to me that's just, it's an honor to hear some of the stuff I've heard about that song. I was with The Warren Brothers last night we did a show at the Ryman for a benefit thing and they're like "Man, that's country music." And that's cool because that's what I wanted for that song, at the same time I don't want to hear that too much, I don't want to hear "That's country music" because I want to branch out of country music and that's not to say I'm not a country music artist, absolutely hundred percent. Same time, I don't want to sit here and do all these songs that sound the same. I'm going to branch out and do some crazy stuff like I always have but this album has a lot of different things like that.

 

Lucas: I'm an album guy. So I like that consistent listening experience from start to finish that does a lot of different stuff on it. So "Lions" kicks off with kind of a real arena rock stadium kind of thing happening to it and and then all the way down to the last song, you know with the Chris LeDoux cover you know, that it is straight up country music and but the little twinges of Garth and stuff that go along with that. So you're doing a lot of different stuff on this record and it, but how long did it take to, and what kind of things did it take to to say, put your foot down and say this is the stuff that I want to do because I think that the fans that I've gathered over this last little bit are going to recognize that and enjoy it. 

 

Chase: Yeah and speaking of I mean that it was, it's been a nightmare. It's been a headache.  I think there's probably a lot of Super Bowl winning teams or championship winning teams that can look back on their seasons, that season that they want and say "My God that was the toughest year we've ever had" and at the end of it you come out with a Super Bowl, that's kind of how I feel with this record, it was a nightmare, so many downs, some ups, the ups are actually more happening now than they were, when I put on that record it was still like we're still on the grind. I was ready to roll with "Lambs & Lions" as it was I was like, we're putting this thing out as-is, what you hear right now, I was ready to put it out on my own and Bruce, my manager was like "You need to meet with Broken Bow records." And I was like "Absolutely not." We've already gone down that road, not happening. He said "Dude, just meet with him." Zach Katz is a guy from L.A., he's changing things up over there. Funny thing is he hasn't really changed much up, it's a lot of the same people that have been there, but I met with him and it was right away it was like "God, this feels right." So I took a chance for me and it's funny when you say "I took a chance and signed a record deal."

 

Lucas: These days. Yeah, that is kind of the way sometimes. 

 

Chase: Yeah, I mean, well I was doing so well independent, but I really liked them over there. So for them to say the same thing about these ten songs, there are the exact opposite thing that I was hearing was, they were like "Heck this is ready to go. We love four songs on this for singles, we love the rest of it for album tracks, we love your vision, we love your art, let's go." And for them to say that about the same ten songs that were basically told no by a group of other people was a little bit of, that was a relief because it was like, "Okay, I'm not crazy like I thought these songs were good. Are they not? what's going on, man?" Yeah, you start doubting yourself as an artist. That's when you got problems. So instead doubting myself I just got mad. I was like, "No. I'm doing it my way, I'm going alone." And then I met with Broken Bow and the rest is history kind of, it's starting to make its own history in a way.  You know "Three chords..." is top 25, the song "Eyes on You" is beating "Three Chords..." on streams and sales and it's not even the single yet. It's gonna be the second single. So and then it's so cool because I can go to them and say and I've already said this to them I was like "Guys, we're either going to get a third song/single off of this "Lambs & Lions" album, or we're going to move on and and and I'm cool with whatever you guys want because I know that you believe in me and I believe in you so I know we're going to make the right decision." So we don't know what we're going to do yet, but we do know we got a great one-two punch with the "Three Chords and the Truth" and "Eyes on You." 

 

Lucas: Going back and talking about "Three Chords and the Truth." That's a phrase that has been around this town. And for those of you listening from elsewhere. We're in Nashville, Tennessee, but it's been around this town and around the country music business for a long, long time. When you were writing that song and now it's you're out there as a single was there any sort of particular pressure on trying to put your spin on that idea in a new and different way that maybe others hadn't done before? 

 

Chase: Absolutely. There's a lot of that pressure is on me every single time I write because I try to say things differently and even this next record that I'm writing right now it's like we've got to top "Eyes on You." We've got to top "Three Chords and the Truth." The only negative thing I've ever seen about "Three Chords..." it was a person just trashing me. They just didn't like me clearly, but and I don't look at that stuff hardly ever but it just one day. I just had a weak moment. I was like, I'm gonna go look at this stuff. It was on iTunes and the guy was like, "How do you write a song where the song itself is called "Three chords and the Truth." It's not even, it's four chords." and that's when I realize you're never going to make people happy man, these people are nuts. But that song man, that was a cool spin on it and these songs meant so much to me along my way, anything but mind just takes me right to my high school girlfriend, or my college girlfriend, and "Amazing Grace" takes me to so many different places in my life. So, those songs are real personal to me and I think that allowed me to just bring a lot of truth to that song. 

 

Lucas: There are probably folks out there who, while they know you from the music, there are some other things about your run up to being involved in music that they're not aware of.  Of the following list of things, which one do you think informs most who you are today: Tar Heel, athlete, tire carrier, or Survivor?

 

Chase: Survivor is dead last in that one, that's for sure. You never see the best in anybody...

 

Lucas: Capital "S" Survivor, maybe, but Survivor lower case perhaps?

 

Chase: Yeah there you go, good call, the TV show. Man, you never see the best of anybody when they're starving for forty days.  No, that was a cool experience, but I would say out of all those... I guess you left out the singer-songwriter part of it. 

 

Lucas: That's that's obvious. Like that's a layup right there

 

Chase: An athletic Tar Heel, we'll go with both of those.  Yeah, man. I miss my days in college football a lot. I miss sports in general because to me, that's the tough part about music is you can sit here and get award after award after award and you may not even be the best one in it. And that's not to knock anybody that wins awards but it's not clear-cut who's better. Everybody's making music, honestly with with everything all of us go through as musicians and artists. Everybody deserves an award at the end of the year, my God, it's a tough life. But that's what I love about sports, it's a clear-cut "We beat you." Well, most of the time, unless a referee screws up a replay or an umpire calls a strike when it was a ball, but that's what I love about sports man. That's the world I grew up in was if I'm better than you, and I beat you, fair and square, that's it. That's the end of the conversation. Well, unless you're a boxer or MMA those guys tend to talk trash no matter what.  But man that's it so I'm gonna stick with sports. 

 

Lucas: So you have two songs on the last record, "Lions,"..."Lambs & Lions." Always get those mixed up.

 

Chase: A lot of people do for some reason.  It's all good though.

 

Lucas: So either that and then the previous one, you know, each of them specifically mentioning the reason why we're doing this podcast, but they're two very different songs, "Jack Daniel's Showed Up" on this record certainly more celebratory about kind of the serendipitous nature of Jack showing up every once in a while, and then "Jack Daniel's and Jesus" is certainly more about regret. In a lot of ways both are great songs. But which one rings more true to you these days? 

 

Chase: Um, man, that's a good question because "Jack Daniel's and Jesus" is for whatever reason something I can always relate to because I guess it takes me back, that was a very dark time in my life. But yeah, I mean, I hate to say that I don't relate to that one as much anymore because I remember those times and the coolest part about those times was it led me to where I am now, which is I'm in a real good place in my life. Which, but I always look back on those darker times and I'm like man, I couldn't tell you anything I'd want different. I'm very glad that all that happened the way it happened because it led me to, its leading me to, I'm not arrived. I don't know if any of us ever do arrive, but it's leading me to you know becoming the man that I've always wanted to be, that I'm trying to be, at the same time. You know, "Jack Daniel's Showed Up" is man, it's just fun live, that thing is, because I mean even if people haven't heard it by the second course or saying that "Jack Daniels Showed Up." Yeah, so it's just fun. They're very, very different. I've sang "Jack Daniels and Jesus" so many times, I haven't been singing it as much lately because it's an older song, a lot of people will want to hear it still but right now I'm having a lot more fun with "Jack Daniel's Showed Up" 

 

Lucas: And on "Jack Daniel's Showed Up" there's that slide sound on there, but it doesn't, it's not just like a straight-up slide guitar, it sounds a little... 

 

Chase:  It's funky. 

 

Lucas: It's like clipped a little, electronically. It's a different take on that. 

 

Chase: That's Chris De Stefano. He is genius when he gets into that studio and he can make sounds just sound nuts, and we actually went in with a band as well which Chris doesn't usually do, but to me that took it to a whole 'nother level. Yes, that allowed the mistakes, the craziness ,the whatever you happen to get that take with a live band, and then you mix that in with the weirdness that you're talking about that Chris can add in there and that to me is a magic of music. I mean either some artists go out there and they just take exactly what they get from the band. They don't change it. I don't want that for this song. Anyway, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to make it funky just because it felt good. We needed a song on the record that just felt good, and "Jack Daniel's Showed Up" is that. 

 

Lucas: I remember the first time I listened to it. I didn't even realize that that you know, I wouldn't look at the title tracks or anything. I just fired it up and heard that and just to kind of the lead up to it. And then you jump into the chorus and go. "Okay. Well, we're definitely gonna talk about that as far as the podcast." But yeah, it's just I mean, it's a good time song but it's not a "let's get stupid" kind of thing.  

 

Chase: Right, it's just a fun song, It goes over really well live funny. Another funny part about that song is I say in the bridge I say so "Gorley, Chris, and I were just writing this song but you know four names should get credit, because us three pick guitars all night long, but it didn't sound like a hit record till Jack Daniel's Showed Up."  The funny thing about that song is it's been years since I've been drinking while we write, because typically we'd start a song and it would go South real fast. We start with a great song and then you don't even know what the songs about, you know, an hour later and ..."Gorley, Chris, and I pick guitars all night long, but it didn't sound like a hit record." I'm not sure we picked up a guitar during that write. So I'm admitting something I maybe shouldn't admit, but Chris is so good, you know tracking while writing.  Gorley and I are probably just sitting over there just coming up with these crazy melodies on our own and Chris is coming up with his melody. So I'm not sure we touched the guitar or actually I do know we did bring a bottle of Jack Daniel's into the room because I went into his kitchen and got one. We're not doing this without at least having this here

 

Lucas: You gotta have the spirit in the room, literally and figuratively.

 

Chase: And that is not fake. Oh, I wanted to actually put Jack Daniel's as one of the songwriters of that but then I was afraid you guys had come looking for money. So I didn't want to lose some cash on it. So we didn't do it. 

 

Lucas: Do you remember the first time you had Old Number 7 Tennessee whiskey?

 

Chase: Am I allowed to talk about that?

 

Lucas:  If well, past the age of 21, again. We we say this a lot. We don't mean it cheekily. Please do enjoy responsibly. 

 

Chase: So I was a big Jack Daniel's fan while I was in college, legally I will say that, and then I got real big into it a few years ago, and I drank it all the time, it's literally what I drink every night on stage that's not a fake thing. But then myself, Connor Barth, who was my college roommate, Garrett Reynolds, another college roommate, went down to the distillery in Lynchburg, and I was like, man, I never been there. It's so close. Let's roll down there. I can't remember if we even told you we were coming. We just kind of showed up but we did get a tour and I can't remember the guys name. We ended up buying him a bottle of Sinatra at the end of the tour, but you guys do it so right, you give us a tour and then get us all jacked up and excited and then the end of the tour it's like oh and you can have your own barrel of Jack Daniel's and get your name on the wall. Nah, I've been thinking about it for a long time to do it anyway, and that day it was just like Connor and I we get together, we're a disaster. We try to spend as much money as possible, so we both bought a barrel that day, but it was cool, this is when I went from "I'm going to drink Jack all the time and you know pouring it and mixing it and drinks, you know, drinking a lot of it, a lot of the time," to "All right. Let's get a little more sophisticated about this." We got down, we did four different barrels from...

 

Lucas: So you went through the whole Single Barrel process?

 

Chase:  Yep, you know, it was four different barrels, I believe Barrel 15, 16, 17, and 19. Okay, and we decided right away 15 was too much.  It's crazy how much difference in taste between each barrel. I was shocked about that. I didn't know and so I ended up buying barrel 19 of the year 2015, Connor bought barrel 17. And then we traded a couple bottles once we got them in, but that's when I got real big into the actual sophisticated part of drinking whiskey in Jack Daniel's. It was really cool. And then I got the barrel and it had my name on it with the plaque, and I'm working on, I'm closing in on barrel two, ill just say that, barrel two is coming.

 

Lucas:  Do you remember anything specifically about the flavor profile of the one that you chose that jumped out at you? 

 

Chase: Yeah, it was huge difference. So Barrel 15, like I said Barrel 15 was just extremely a ton of flavor. Okay, so maybe it wasn't as smooth. I can't say much about 16 was just we don't know what for whatever reason it didn't make the final two. 17 and 19 were the two we we're down to, and there was a big difference. So Connor's has more flavor. He got barrel 17. You can just taste it more, but it is smooth. Mine is extremely smooth, something about it is just real smooth, less flavor than 17, but I just loved it. I just felt like I could sit there and sip on it all day. Which I don't know how that'd go for me. But yeah, it was crazy the difference in the flavors, the difference in how smooth each was like if you compared 15 to 19, the one I got, they were not even close to the amount of smoothness and that's just goes and I guess where it is in the rick house and and all that, but man it was a fun experience and it got me into a different style of drinking whiskey, that's where I am right now. I just I have that barrel sitting in my house. And actually we're going to put some barrels on stage with us because we're trying to set a vibe of just hanging out because we came up in bars. We started touring in bars. We still sometimes tour in bars. We try to go back once a year at least to a lot of places we started and because we made our way before we ever had radio. We were touring, touring, touring, touring, and a lot of people don't do that. That's just what I preferred. And so we're trying to set our stage up to go back to those glory days in the beginning of my career. And hopefully we still got the actual glory days ahead of us. But back when we were in the Sprinter, you know back when you were in your van or my truck going to these bars. We're trying to set that scene and big part of that for us has been been Jack Daniel's. 

 

Lucas: And yet for the fans that are going to be sitting out there. It's not always the best thing to bring you guys shots all night, maybe part of the night, 

 

Chase: On the stage?

 

Lucas: On the stage. 

 

Chase: Oh God, it's horrible. That's what I was saying earlier man is I feel like everybody thinks oh there's Chase. He's probably drunk right now. That's not it. Um, like I said, I guess now there's a different style of drinking that I do, I love sipping, especially out of my barrel that I bought. But yeah, usually if you bring a shot to me on stage, usually I'm going to turn it down because we'll have some fun after the show, but during the show I want people to get the best show they can possibly get and that involves me controlling what I'm drinking not somebody else.

 

Lucas: Talk about the acronym "HDEU" and what that phrase means to you and how you're going about putting kind of that message out into the world right now. 

 

Chase: That to me, I wear it on my hat every single night. We sell merch for it and to me it's more important as a meaning and it's "Head Down Eyes Up" is what it stands for and its "Head Down, Eyes Up, Keep Going." That's our, that's our slogan and more of a mantra and to me it's alright, we step back. This is the specific example of that in my life right now. We step back, got away from a record deal, you know pinpointed where the problems were, and started to fix it. And we fix the foundation of it, we were at the bottom of the mountain. From a mountain that we were just on top of one. So it's like, that's a little frustrating to get down to another valley but we're at base camp and we fixed our stuff. We've got our plan together. Now, let's go. Anybody that's climbed big mountains knows it takes quite a while. I mean, I watch the special on Meru, Everest all these different places. I mean it destroys people climbing these mountains, the same thing in music, it destroys artists climbing these mountains. So that's what the "Head Down, Eyes Up" mentality is for me. It's not to get to the top of the mountain. It's not to listen all these people yelling at me that I can't do it. It's not even listen to all these people that tell me I can do it. It's, "I'm going to focus on each step along the way." So for me right now, what's the steps? I mean, all right. Let's look at "Three chords and the Truth." That's our next step. We put the record out, "Three Chords and the Truth." Let's kill it. Let's bust it right now. Go talk to radio, get this thing played on air as much as we possibly can, because we know that's the next step to us becoming even greater on stage, playing to more people. Then the next step, get it as high as we can. Then next up will be "Eyes on You" get that as high as we can and then we'll evaluate from there. But if you focus on that one that you're going to look at me, like whoa, this feels a little different. We're at the top of the mountain as opposed to focusing on just getting to the top. Yeah, and that's what "Head Down, Eyes Up" is all about, its keep that lion mentality of we're going here to the left or right I don't care what's going on behind us I don't care what's going on up way in front of us. I don't care what's going on, but right in front of us, we got that lion mentality and we're not going to stop and surely till we get to that next step. 

 

Lucas: What's the what's the URL people go to to check that line of? 

 

Chase: Yeah, that's headdowneyesup.com 

 

Lucas: There you go. This is a kind of a broader idea maybe to wrap up with but what do you think country music is doing right these days? and where is it coming up short? 

 

Chase: What's it doing right these days? There's a lot of right these days. I mean, I feel like, the funny part is, I mean a lot of these artists get so much, you know thrown at them that people are hating what they're doing, ruining country music. I hear that a lot. I don't shy away from it. I think it's interesting, because you keep hearing well country music's ruined. It's not what it was. Well, it's never going to be what it was. It wasn't what it was 10, 15 years ago before the 10, 15 years before that. So I think the best thing that country music is doing right now is ignoring that, to be honest with you and it's hard to ignore, you're going to know it's there in the back of your mind. The best thing to do as an artist is acknowledge it, well how does that make me feel, well it pisses me off. What do I usually do when I get like that? I do it even more.  So I think that's the best thing for country music to do right now is to continue to ignore that and use it as fuel to make country music even bigger because I believe, call me crazy, I believe country music's the biggest it's been in a long time. So I think we just need to keep going with it. Where we're lacking I'd say is it started a few years ago I think "the girl in a truck and a perfect night." That's awesome. That is country music. But I think it's just I think each artist needs to take it amongst themselves. If you're going to say that, figure out a different way to say it, or figure out a cool way to say it. It's just to me, don't cover the same thing. And this is more me talking to myself this mentality because I can't control anything anybody else does but I try to push myself to do that to find something some other way to say the same thing or find something else to say. 

 

Lucas: Chase Rice, continued safe travels. Thanks for coming to see us Around the Barrel. 

 

Chase: I appreciate it. I was out on my farm earlier this morning hunting turkey, so I'm going to get back to that.

 

Lucas: Have some Single Barrel for us.

 

Chase: I will.

 

Lucas: Around the Barrel is the official podcast of the Jack Daniel Distillery. Follow the podcast on the web at JackDaniels.com/podcast, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, and review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you gather your on-demand audio. Always remember, with great podcast and great whiskey, please enjoy responsibly. Join us next time for more conversations Around the Barrel. Your friends at Jack Daniel's remind you to drink responsibly. Jack Daniels and Old Number 7 are registered trademarks, copyright 2018, Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof distilled and bottled by Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around the Barrel is intended for listeners 21 years of age and older.