The year was 1966 when a garage band named the Standells notified mainstream America that “sometimes good guys don’t wear white.” Lee Brice, a country music star for almost a decade, is proof that sometimes country artists don’t wear Stetson hats, either.

“I’m not a cowboy,” Brice explained recently, calling from his home in Nashville. Brice returns to Honolulu on Saturday for a one-nighter with Jerrod Niemann in the Blaisdell Concert Hall. It’s a stop on Brice’s “Life Off My Years” tour, which includes Maui on Sunday and two shows in Australia next weekend.

“I didn’t grow up with horses and roping and bulls, I grew up in cornfields and cotton fields, and huntin’ and fishin’ and working,” he continued. “I guess I’m a plowboy more than a cowboy.”

Brice, 36, grew up in South Carolina with the beach much closer than ranch country. He knew at age 10 that he wanted to be a recording artist, and because he thought that the people he heard on the radio were all singing songs they had written, he started writing songs for himself. He attended Clemson on a football scholarship, but an arm injury ended any consideration of a pro career. He pursued his childhood dream of becoming a recording artist instead.

“I came to Nashville to be an artist, a singer, a songwriter-singer; I wanted to do all of it. I wasn’t a songwriter who just kind of fell into being an artist. It just so happened that I had a little success as a songwriter first.”

Brice’s first “little success” came in 2007 when he co-wrote country superstar Garth Brooks’ chart-topper “More Than a Memory.” He was signed to a recording contract by Curb Records later that same year; his first single, “She Ain’t Right,” peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Country Singles chart. Two years and several singles later, Curb released his first album, “Love Like Crazy.”

His second album, “Hard 2 Love,” followed in 2012. His current album, “I Don’t Dance,” was released in the fall of 2014.

BRICE ENJOYS songwriting as much as ever. “I like to write songs to where there’s a little room for somebody to kind of take it how they want. Of course, there are some songs that are just straight to the point.”

For instance, “Somebody’s Been Drinking” describes the experience of getting a call in the middle of the night from an ex you really don’t want to see but whose sexual allure is too strong to hang up on.

“That’s about a 12- or 13-year stretch of my life plugged into a three-minute song,” Brice said. “Those are my favorite songs, the ones that are extremely true to the letter about my own life. It’s like ‘I Don’t Dance’ or ‘Crazy Girl’ or ‘That Don’t Sound Like You’ — very, very true to the letter, ’cause I feel like when you write a song that’s that true, then more than likely a lot of other folks are going through the same kind of things. I think that’s (why) they connect.”

Brice was still coming down emotionally from the night before. He’d shared the stage with Crystal Gayle, Jeff Hanna, Big & Rich and Randy Travis as the Grand Ole Opry presented record industry veteran Jim Ed Norman with the Bob Kingsley Living Legend Award for his impact on country music.

Hawaii knows Norman as the producer of “Na Mele o Paniolo: The Songs of the Hawaiian Cowboy,” the soundtrack of Edgy Lee’s 1997 documentary film, and for his role in launching the M.E.L.E. (Music & Entertainment Learning Experience) Program at Honolulu Community College, but his credits in the music business include playing on and arranging recordings by the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt in the 1970s, serving almost 20 years as president of Warner Bros./Western in Nashville, and his current position as CEO of The Curb Group.

The award presentation was a night Brice won’t forget.

“Don Henley (of the Eagles) was there. Kenny Rogers was there, all these people that had been involved with Jim Ed Norman. Randy Travis came out on stage and made an appearance, and I actually got to sing ‘I Don’t Dance’ on (the) same stage with Crystal Gayle and Don Henley. It was really pretty crazy.

“Right before I played I just basically said that it was crazy how much influence Jim Ed Norman had on my life before I ever met him, and then when I met him (several years ago) it was so cool.”

LOOKING FORWARD, Brice said he is proud to be a “country boy” but prefers to avoid commercial labels.

“I’m in a country genre, and I love country music and I was raised on it, but I never did wear a big cowboy hat or anything like that. I just really hope that one day my music is just ‘my music’ — like Bruce Springsteen is ‘Bruce Springsteen music,’ just its own genre. ‘Lee Brice is Lee Brice music.’”

His advice to the next generation of would-be superstar singers and hit songwriters is to look at it as a lifetime commitment.

“It’s not handing a (demo) CD out to somebody and expecting all of a sudden something to change. It’s a lifetime commitment decision. I still have that attitude. At this point I’ve had No. 1s (singles) and I’ve had ‘songs of the year,’ I’ve had some success and I still feel like I’m going to keep that mentality — shooting for the moon, and keep rocking.”