TIFTON — When Richie McDonald gets on stage Jan. 10 at the Tift Theatre, it’ll be more stripped down than his Lonestar shows.

“It’s more up close and intimate,” said McDonald. “I can tell the stories about why I wrote a song…or why we recorded a song. [Lonestar is] more festivals, casinos, larger crowds. It’s more structured.”

McDonald is the frontman for country band Lonestar, founded in 1992. He’s been back with the band since 2011 after taking some time off “spending time with my family, watching the kids grow up.”

“It was good time off, well spent,” said McDonald. “But I think we all figured out we’re better together than we are apart.”

Since reuniting, Lonestar has kept him busy. Last year, they played more than 80 shows, including joining fellow country musician Phil Vassar for the Not So Silent Night Tour.

“We’re doing to do it again next year,” said McDonald. “Phil’s such a great entertainer. He’s like the Billy Joel of country music.”

He mixes up Lonestar gigs with solo shows, like the Tifton one, and touring with The Frontmen, a country supergroup made up of the lead singers from Little Texas and Restless Heart, along with McDonald.

And there are plans for a new Lonestar album, their first since the 2016 album “Neverenders.”

“I’d say that we’d start writing for that pretty soon…and probably head back in the studio [this] summer,” said McDonald.

Songwriting is how McDonald got into the business to begin with. He started writing songs as a teenager in Lubbock, Texas.

“I wrote really bad songs about girls,” McDonald said, laughing. “They were bad, bad songs, but I thought, being from Lubbock, Texas, I was a huge fan of Buddy Holly.”

“I always wanted to be a songwriter,” he said. “When I moved to Nashville, I had the opportunity to start writing with some of the great Nashville songwriters.”

And he’s kept at the songwriting.

He recently wrote a song with Kurt Jay, an Alabama-based musician who was on the The Voice’s 2018 season. Country music legend Charlie Pride recorded his song “Guntersville Gazette” about a small town newspaper, off Pride’s 2011 album, “Choices.”

Recently, McDonald watched Mark Wills get inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and it’s made him think about Lonestar’s legacy.

“That’s gotta be the pinnacle moment in a career, or being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame,” said McDonald.

South Georgia native Ryn Crider, who recently made the move to Nashville, Tenn., will be opening the show.

The show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at Freshtix.com.