For the past couple of months, the Park Theatre on 848 Park Ave. in Cranston has experienced a genuine reinvigoration. The calendar has been chock full of events ranging from theatrical performances to comedy shows and to live music, which has been a welcome occurrence for folks around Rhode Island. The latter has definitely been a focus with a variety of bands and musicians taking the stage at the establishment that’s been celebrating 100 years in business. On Nov. 16, Nashville country chart-toppers Lonestar are going to be continuing this entertaining trend. The show starts at 8 p.m. and it promises to be an ideal way for fans of twangy sounds to spend a Saturday night.

I had a talk with guitarist Michael Britt ahead of the festivities about the band’s origins, a unique EP they’re going to be releasing next year and his enjoyment of the New England region.

Rob Duguay: Originally performing under the name Texasee, Lonestar formed when yourself and the other founding members met at the Opryland USA theme park in Nashville. How did this all come about, were you all working at the theme park or was it more of a random occurrence?

Michael Britt: Actually, John Rich and Dean Sams were the only ones who actually worked at Opryland. I think Richie McDonald and Dean were at the same audition for Opryland back in Texas, so that’s where they met. Dean ended up getting the gig there, so he moved to Nashville and Richie eventually moved there a few years later. Myself and the original drummer Randy [“Keech” Rainwater] didn’t work at Opryland, but we all kind of knew all of the same people at the same time.

RD: It’s been mentioned that while being initially rooted in honky-tonk and neotraditional country, Lonestar’s sound has gradually incorporated elements of pop music while performing more ballads. How would you describe the progression of the band’s music from when you guys were starting out to now?

MB: When we first started out, we were a cover band playing other people’s songs. We basically based our whole sound on getting people to stay on the dance floor while throwing in a few ballads, but we were pretty hyped up as a band. Once we started writing our own songs, they became kind of what we would do, and when we got a record deal, that became our only focus. During this whole time, we’ve never wanted to be considered just one thing and we love playing a variety of music. “Keech” and myself both come from a rock background, so we’re always going to try to include some of those elements and I think that’s the cool thing about being in a band.

You have people with different experiences and different things they’ve listened to and learned from over the years, so by the time you cram all of those together in the same room, it’s kind of a hodgepodge. To me, that’s what we do. It’s kind of a peppy rock and pop hodgepodge.

RD: It’s the essence of collaboration, you’re always going to have different ideas and different sounds melding with each other. Next year, you guys are going to be releasing a new EP titled “Iconic, Vol. 1” that honors numerous female vocalists. What initially inspired this project and what was the experience like making the record?

MB: One day we were soundchecking with Drew [Womack], who can sing the phonebook and it’ll sound great, and he was singing Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” I thought it was so cool and you don’t expect a guy to do female songs, but there’s something that’s really great about it because it makes you look at the song in a whole new way. I’ve always loved cool covers, so when Drew started doing that, it started the idea of us doing a covers record. Then it steered into the direction of doing all female songs, so every person in the band picked a song that we thought was iconic in some way.

It was really a project we were just doing for fun and for ourselves. We didn’t really have any plans to release anything, it was just fun to make.

RD: With “Vol.1” being part of the title of the EP, can we expect this to be a series of some sort with each EP having a certain theme?

MB: That is the plan, even though it’s a very rough sketch of a plan. Including “Vol. 1” in the title kind of leaves the door open to pick something else, whether it’s singer-songwriters or one hit wonders. We always have a lot of ideas and nothing is in for Vol. 2 yet, but it’s fun to do these types of projects where there’s no pressure from a record label or anything like that. We’re not trying to get radio play, we just want to make music we think our fans at our shows would like to hear.

RD: It sounds like a fun project, especially with the idea for the first one. What are your thoughts on performing at the Park Theatre this weekend?

MB: I always look forward to playing in the New England region. I like the area, I like the history and growing up in Texas, all you can see is miles and miles of grass and farmland. Just going across the state can take over 24 hours, so I think there’s something really cool about New England where you’re only a short drive from so many places and it’s really lovely. I’ve been up there numerous times on my own and we’ve played up around that area too at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. It seems like the crowds there are really responsive and we have a lot of fun.