In an interview with Radio.com during his Encore album release week, Hayes recalled hearing "I Want Crazy" recently on the radio with his parents in Nashville.

"I was riding somewhere with my folks in Nashville on a day off and it came on and conversation ceased," he said. "There was pure excitement. There is pure excitement. There will always be pure excitement. That's not something you get used to or get comfortable with necessarily. It still catches me off guard a little bit and I think it always will because there's something magical about somebody else endorsing your music that way, believing in you like that. It was really cool."

Hayes revealed how the song came together in a writing session with Lori McKenna and Troy Verges. "I had this title 'I Want Crazy' and I was trying to say exactly what I said. I don't want, 'We can make this work. Sure, okay, it's good,'" he explained. "There's these moments in the right relationship where your friends look at you as if they don't know you. They're just like, 'Who are you?' But it's a pleasant surprise. It's not like, 'Dude you haven't called me in six months, kind of surprise. It's more like, 'Where's all this energy and all these laughs coming from. Who is this person?'"