that is just writing at its mastery level man and i have to applaud you the performance on bible versus blake is emotional like you got inside it man wow thank you man congratulations i'm excited about this new album i really am you said something recently on a really lovely kind of short film which which sort of
coincides with the release of this record and the opening statement was really interesting to me you said you know i wasn't even sure i'd even make another album again and i think i think that you know most artists contemplate that at various points on your journey for lots of different reasons personal creative you know there's lots of
reasons why were you sort of thinking along those lines at one point or another mate the nuts and bolts reasons are that you know it seems like maybe we're moving towards a a single driven music format in general you know and and and uh you know the way you look at it from a from a boring industry point of view is well this song
is being consumed on streaming and you know zayn zane low played it and you know you go through all these things and it kind of creates a bottom line and and it feels like albums are kind of pushed over into like a different place in in the industry at least for me it's kind of become that way i don't want to speak
for everybody you know uh and and and so i i want i don't want to to let songs be on albums and then just kind of be buried in the pile because they're not the featured uh piece of music you know and because uh you know a lot of times if i if i cut a song that somebody else wrote and i put it on an album and it's never a single
sometimes that's that's almost like just burying it alive you know when when maybe it could have had a life somewhere else who knows you know how some of those things could shake out but you know the other thing is you know i'm 40 i'm about to turn 45 and and sometimes it's you know it's harder for me to just go well you know
what is it that i feel like saying at this point in my life and and the truth is if we're just being honest here talking i just like great songs i i at this point in my life i'm i'm not trying to prove anything or or make sure that people you know are receiving this this special message that i'm trying to send them through my music i just like
great country songs like bible verses that you were just playing you know i mean i heard the song and and i never really thought of myself in that way like i think of myself as a as a spiritual person that and i have faith in god but i never really thought about it in terms of of wow you know i sometimes i just feel
like i'm just never going to get there i'm never going to measure up to what i need to measure up to you know and even though i have that thought i never really thought about putting that into a song and then lo and behold these these great songwriters come along and and have this idea write it and it slapped me in the face just like it did
you you know and then it becomes something that i do want to say you know and so when i think in terms of just making an album and going i want people to get you know this message about this place that i'm at in my life right now i don't think anybody really cares to be honest i think i would rather just
make a great album that's full of the best songs i can come up with even if some of them contradict the next one i don't care i just i'm just crazy about well-written great songs you know god this is so that was such a beautiful answer ma'am there's so much in there i'm trying to sort of cherry pick these things that keep coming to mind when you
say them but the one thing that really that immediately stood out the beginning of of what you said was when somebody invests in you and you invest in them by deciding to cut a song it's a union it's a union it's an emotional contract you've written something i really love and i'm going to try to do it justice
right and we would love you to do it justice we're going to present this to you you're the voice to carry this and make it real but you're right it doesn't feel as real sometimes unless it's being it's that forest that tree in the forest situation but no one's ever to your credit put it that way that maybe this song would be better
suited in the hands of somebody else that's gonna make it a single or really get behind it rather than it just be track number seven on an album i have never considered that and it's a very meta-modern kind of concern you know and it proves to me that you really take collaboration seriously you know for me i guess i would consider
myself a songwriter i mean i've written some songs i've cut songs of i've been in that lane you know too humble about it in my opinion but you're a humble guy so i respect it oh thank you but i before mostly i just consider myself a country singer that's all i ever really wanted to be you know and i just wanted i thought it
would be so cool to to be able to sing country music for a living and maybe hear myself on the radio one day you know uh that's that was what my dream was as a teenager and and and if it wasn't for these songwriters mostly i guess in nashville for me if they haven't if they hadn't had the confidence or
took a chance on me i would i would still be roofing houses in oklahoma you know i mean it's it's because of the riders that uh i've been able to to have the the career that i've had and i think uh and it's and i feel like maybe it's getting tougher and tougher for for songwriters to to really hit that that grand slam uh
with the way the the industry's kind of shifted and and nobody's fault it's just kind of become what it is now you know i can think of a few people that maybe had had the case of the kingdom at a really crucial point that chose made some pretty shitty decisions [Laughter] you see how i try to just kind of navigate around beautifully done
meditative meditative but anyway you know i think to your point if some if it's not a song that's made a single or at least a featured uh piece of music and you know how that works with with apple you know a song can be an instagram or whatever they call some of those things you know but uh at the end of the day i try to be
mindful of that stuff and there's been times where i've held on to songs for sometimes for years after i've cut them and with with this reason in mind and we always scott and i always go back to the writers or at least scott does on my behalf and says hey if you're cool with it we would rather not put this song on
this album because we don't know that we'll get to it as a single and we just think it deserves to be a single happy anywhere which is on this album uh was a song that i cut probably two two and a half maybe three years ago wow and and and because we knew we were coming with a hits package and we were
you know you know how those things work it's like well we know we're going to release these two and it's like hey if you guys are cool and you think you can live with it we want this to be a single but it's going to be we're talking a year and a half down the road can you swallow that feeling you know that is amazing they have to to take
that journey with me you know but yeah i trust you yeah yeah but it's a huge amount of trust in your process too because you are a man of your word i know that i know people who know you and i know that that's an important part of of of your makeup and um so when you make that decision with scott like hey we're
gonna hold tight on this but trust us we'll get to it you're in you know i've been on the receiving end of those phone calls where it's like hey congratulations you track 13 on a 12 song album right i've had those calls yeah and there's no way to spin it right it's like cool excellent okay deluxe version song one on the deluxe extension
and it's still great it's still great you still feel proud of your work you're proud to and also you had the process but in many respects what you're saying would be a kind of beautiful call to get which is like if we can be patient here the song will have its day in the sun and by the same token we always say hey look i get it if
if this is if this is too much to ask and and luke bryan is recording or jason aldean and you and you by all means you know we try to be as fair as we can but it's always and i can see it from the writer's point of view it's like man okay we got a bird and a bird in hand here you know what i mean like let's just let's just let i would
say 99 of the time they said no you cut it just go with it when you want to you know yeah and still you know and here we are talking about that as i'm releasing an album that you and i both know i'm going to get to to four singles on it but i just feel like we're in that that transition period still it's taken
a while you know the record company they still they kind of they depend on an album you know and that's the other end of end of the spectrum and and i think for the most part when the songwriters that i work with they know if they're if they've written a song that i've cut that is an album cut or just or it's something that's extra
special and and you know everybody in the room kind of knows oh this this gonna be a single i mean you know what i mean and now we're at a point where anniversaries are rolling around and this is i think this is the sweetest spot for artists when you can have something new to share with people and also something that we already love to
celebrate again you know and we're hitting an anniversary um you know austin big moment these are all big moments in your life right moments that you can kind of pinpoint where things change what changed for you with that song now we're looking back a couple of decades i i got to be honest when i recorded austin
when i first heard austin i didn't even want to record it i remember thinking oh my god like this is the cheesiest thing i've ever heard in my life like what is this guy this guy's so desperate like get over it like the girl left you know you and then but then the more i heard it ah the folly of youth if you heard it
now on first lesson you'd be like mine i know i know not knowing now but thank god you know i thank god i had bobby in my life and i had a a lady by the name of debbie zabitson who was a r record or a r for giant records and they were like listen we get what you're saying but just please just live with the song live with it for a couple of weeks
every time you're in your truck listen to it a time or two and i'm telling you you know and then and it didn't take long maybe a day or two i was like okay you know at some point one of those listens got to me you know but i still didn't feel like the song i didn't see how i could fit in with with that song as far as the way i sounded and saying
the demo that i had of it was like a piano bass demo and i was always like considered myself like guitar banging guy you know and and so bobby said to me he said well well just freaking learn it on the guitar then and and try to make it into something that fits what you do and and that and then that happened and the
rest you know became my my beginning in history you became pretty big news from that point forward you know it's it's funny it's like the rest of the world finally caught up to what those around you already knew which is and i'm going to give you a compliment here and i know that you you know i don't
know how you i don't know how you take them but i'm going to dive straight in uh you know you're a charismatron man you've got an energy about you and aura about you which just exists and i'm sure you have your low days and things you've got to deal with and the challenges of life but when you're on your own you know you present your best
and um i always appreciate it but i've always appreciated it about you and and but with that comes this attractive thing it's like a law of attraction all of a sudden it's like hey you know now everybody kind of wants to get a little bit closer and a little bit closer and pretty soon you can't see past people and i wonder sort of at what point you
realize like okay i have to change my thinking here because otherwise i could get swallowed up by this like many others have and you seem to be able to to channel it and you understand it for what it is but i can't imagine it was always like that especially when it first arrived the thing that shook me and and kind of
knocked me off my game was i just kind of got overwhelmed by the workload of it all when was this about when was this i had signed on to do the voice in 2011 and and at that point in my career i was i was opening for brad paisley and and which was a big opportunity for me but then all of a sudden this television
show landed in the middle of that and then tv show blew up i didn't even really understand the television world i remember we filmed you know half of the season and it started airing and by the time i got back to the show to start working on when the show went live i remember walking in and producers were running up to me i'm
like oh my god we have a hit can you believe we got a hit and i was like we do like what do you mean we have a hit i mean my family are watching but and we're all excited but i didn't really understand that world i still don't really understand how to read text it's also kind of confu it's also kind of a confusing format too
because it's like we film here then it goes and it comes and it's here and then when i you know i've spoken to a few people who've worked on these shows and and and they said the same thing that you're saying which is when you first start doing these kind of shows the way they roll them out it's hard to know when it's on the air or not on the air
yeah oh for sure and then you know back then they would say we got a you know i don't even know i'm just gonna a 3.9 with with the key you know democrat i'm going uh 3.9 sounds horrible to me what does that even mean you know what are you talking about yeah like what is it what do you and i still don't really understand that to be
perfect and they say like you know voice hits all-time high or voice sinks to new low you know that's those are the things that that i understand you know just that's what i used to say to my boss i'd be like either either either my line would always be at ratings time i'd be like i don't want to know the details
just either give me a raise or give me my pink slip it's one or the other but anyway so obviously this the show blew up bigger than than anything i've ever experienced blew up and and immediately took over my life and but here i was does that mean blake sorry what does that mean when it takes over your life
it means you can you could be in country music the biggest artist in our format you could be the selling 10 million albums per album but you could probably still walk into to walmart and get in and out of there without a lot of people recognizing you know you're you're a voice on the radio and if they happen to watch videos
uh but all of a sudden here i am you know on television two nights a week at the time the biggest show on television and and it was uh that's what i mean like all of a sudden there was paparazzi following me around and there was i can't i can go to walmart but man better do a couple of shots of tequila before i walk in there because i'm gonna
it's gonna it's gonna be a nightmare you know you know that level of attention yeah it's great it allows you to be passionate about what you do but it's not normal yeah well i would say this to that which is you know i i can pick and choose the days that i'm in the mood for or not you know and it's up to me i
i should never go to a restaurant on a day where i don't i'm not up to someone approaching me you know that's that's on me and so uh and and i think that's why i've never you know and i've been with with artists when they're like and i've seen them do it where they're like you know what not today you know i'm not
doing that today and and even though i get i relate to them [Music] for what they're doing i also i hate it for whoever they're doing it to because you know this this person is it's their it's their one chance in their life that they're going to get a chance to say something that they wanted to say to this person you know and so
who's inspired them who's inspired them to this person means something to them it's not just like oh i'm going to sell this i'm going to put this on social media if you have the courage to go up and someone's eating a meal and you really say look i'm a fan it's a deep you know that person's heart is in their throat oh yeah yeah
and it's and it's hard for them too and so i always just feel like hey look if you if i go somewhere then it must mean that i'm ready to high five some people i don't know if i answered whatever question you may have asked i can't even remember i didn't even know if i i'm not even sure if i asked a question to be honest
with you i don't think i've asked one question in this whole conversation um which brings us to a song called happy anywhere and this moment that you know we love a duet that's rooted in authenticity and we we like songs where it's it's a match made in social media heaven and let's all just share our followers great it's a banger
but we love a song where the where it's real where the chemistry is real you know it's clearly real between you and gwen and but when you cut when it comes to recording the music you know how is that experience when it comes down to like really sharing a moment in the creative space not just a moment in the home life
gwen and i wrote a song together about five years ago i think maybe six um called uh go ahead and break my heart and and it was on uh if i'm honest album and and i remember at that time you know we were just we were just starting to see each other and and uh we were both going through horrible breakups divorces and horrible in that it was
just sad you know yeah and and so i there was times where gwen and i would be like you know are we is this are we rebounding here is that what we're doing together because this makes no sense right and and so that we would always have these conversations of like oh yeah this we're just you know we're just getting over you
know our our crap with each other you know and so that's kind of where that song was born out of and and it was interesting because all of a sudden there was this girl that i was just starting to see and spend time with and that i was obviously crazy about but all of a sudden as we we wrote this song and we wrote it on like voice notes or
whatever sending them back and forth with each other and and it was like only then did it dawn on me and not not that it dawned on me but it really like was a shocker to me that oh my god i'm writing a song with gwen stefani like all that not only only then did it kind of hit me like she's an incredible songwriter these
things she's coming and then her voice on the on the voice notes the way she sounded just singing it like a little scratch vocal to show me what she was thinking it's like that voice like you talk to her and she talks she sounds like gwen but when she sings all of a sudden it's it's the girl that's don't speak
it's it's yeah you know what i mean it's that it's that icon it's icon status you know so i still to answer your question i think i'm i'm still not really over that hump i remember when when we were recording the vocals for for happy anywhere because we actually recorded that song before we recorded uh nobody but you which came out before
happy anywhere going back to the story i was talking about earlier uh i remember being in studio in like you know texting the writers like you know taking videos like oh my god you are going to when you this is gwen stefani is singing your song right now you know what i mean like and they were freaking out you know and so i still
have those moments when we get into work mode and that you know it's i know that i should be it should be super like emotional and personal and this but i'm really still because we haven't done that many we've done four songs together and i'm still more in kind of blown away fan shocked mode when i when i actually work
with her you know and there's been times where she comes out on stage we'll have a plan that she's at one of my concerts and and we always try to keep it on the down low uh and then we'll start nobody but you and and or go ahead and break my heart and then i'll be singing it and here i am dying from the time i stand on stage
walk out on stage till that moment hits because i know on that set list people are going to sh in their seats when they when gwen stefani walks out here it's like i'm still like a kid on christmas morning and so that's what it's like for me working with her it's just it's just exciting it really is you