Country Trio McBride & the Ride on Recording Again for the First Time in 20 Years: 'We All Have the Passion'

It was 2002 when '90s supergroup McBride & The Ride last recorded an album together. At the time, there was no streaming, no social media and virtually no chance to score a country hit without radio support.

"We released our version of The Who song 'Squeeze Box,' and they just didn't think that was the right message to put on the radio at the time," recalls McBride & The Ride's Ray Herndon, 62, to PEOPLE. "It could have been a big hit for us, but it wasn't."

And then, 20 years went by.

"I went to a show here in Arizona where [former bandmate] Terry McBride was doing a solo show," says Herndon, who has been Lyle Lovett's lead guitarist since 1985. "We had all stayed in contact, but everybody had been doing their own thing. But that night, Terry called me up on stage and we hadn't really sung together in such a long time. But we did [McBride & the Ride hit] 'Sacred Ground', and it was just like riding a bike. It's like we had never stopped."

Soon after, the band reunited.

"We're still able and young enough and we all have the passion," explains Herndon of his McBride & The Ride bandmates, which also includes Billy Thomas. "So, we all thought we should try to do this again."

McBride & the Ride are indeed doing just that, as the country trio best known for hits such as "Love on the Loose, Heart on the Run" and "Going Out of My Mind" find themselves on the radio again with their first single in over two decades, "Marlboros & Avon."

"It's just amazing how easy something like this comes back together when everybody is talented on their own," explains Thomas, 69, who has long served as Vince Gill's drummer on the road and in the studio. "There was a reason for this. We knew what we had."

While "Marlboros & Avon" showcases those tried-and-true '90s harmonies that McBride & the Ride has long been known for, the song also demonstrates the creative strides that each vocalist has taken individually while out on their own.

"We didn't want to just be that '90s band that just relied on those '90s," explains McBride, 64, an accomplished songwriter in his own right who has recently been hard at work helping to develop the country music career of America's Got Talent Season 17 runner-up Drake Milligan. "We knew we could build on that, but we also wanted to create some new music. That was really our focus moving forward."

It's this focus that old and new fans alike are certainly warming up to now, as the reaction to "Marlboros & Avon thus far has been so very positive, especially during a recent Grand Ole Opry performance of the song.

"It's about that end of innocence that we all go through," says McBride of the song he wrote alongside Mark Harris and Bill Vaughn that will be included on the trio's upcoming EP, set for release this summer. "Now all these years later, I look back and almost sort of long for some of those days, with dad's arm out the window and our kids knowing nothing about secondhand smoke."

It's a nostalgic trip back indeed, as is the song's accompanying music video.

"We all had a lot more hair," laughs Thomas of the music video that includes footage of the band in its earlier days. "We came up during the peak of the mullet, you know? We definitely embraced it."

Nevertheless, McBride & the Ride has been on this ride before, and they know the twists and turns a career and a song can ultimately take.

"It's a crazy world," McBride says quietly. "This has been tough. We don't have any huge expectations other than we did our job. We recorded some good music that we feel strongly about and that we are proud of."