Jon Pardi Says He Has a Collaboration With Luke Bryan in the Works – Billboard

Jon Pardi is gearing up to release his forthcoming album, Mr. Saturday Night, on Sept. 2, but the ACM and CMA Award winner tells Billboard that he also has more music in the works — including a duet with Luke Bryan.

“Me and Luke got one coming out. That will be next year’s thing,” Pardi told Billboard during a recent interview. “We’ve been buddies for a long time,” Pardi says of Bryan, “so that’ll be a cool one when we get there.” Pardi previously opened shows for Bryan’s 2018 What Makes You Country Tour.

Pardi tells Billboard that the song — titled “Cowboys and Plowboys” — is an anthem for “farmers and cowboys, the backbone of this country, from working to having a good time. It talks about drinking and stuff, but it’s not a party song. It’s upbeat and super country. [Guitarist] Brent Mason is on there, so if you’re talking about ’90s country, ‘Cowboys and Plowboys’ is ’90s country.”

With a glut of duets burning up the Country Airplay chart over the past year, Pardi says he and Bryan were forced to wait a bit before releasing the song.

“At the time we were talking about it, Luke had ‘Buy Dirt’ and the Pitbull thing [for Trace Adkins’ ‘Where My Country Girls At’], so it was like, ‘It’s going to be 2023 before it sees the light of day.’ Rhett [Akins] wrote it and said, ‘Buddy, it’s you and Luke.’ Then Luke called me and said, ‘Are we going to sing this song?’ We’ve got something in the can, though.”

According to a separate interview Pardi did with Country Countdown USA, Pardi mentioned that the song will be on his upcoming deluxe album, slated for next year. A rep for Pardi did not confirm the duet or the deluxe album to Billboard.

Pardi, of course, is no stranger to collaborations, having previously teamed with Thomas Rhett (the 2020 No. 1 Country Airplay hit “Beers Can’t Fix”), Lauren Alaina (“Getting Over Him”) and, most recently, with Midland for the song “Longneck Way to Go,” which is included on Pardi’s Mr. Saturday Night.