This is an album we'd like people to take home and listen to from start to finish. Hopefully it'll give them the same feeling they get when they come to our show: It covers a little bit of everything, it has a lot of energy and emotion, and when you're done you feel that you've got more than your money's worth.

Got Mud (Jerrod Niemann/Monty Criswell)
We thought this would be a fun, catchy song that would appeal to a lot of good ol' 4 wheelin', mud slingin', country folk.


That's Brent Mason on that guitar solo. I can't remember who did it first, but Brent was in the studio, and I said, "Well, what do you think about that?" So when everybody else left, he went in to lay one down and of course just burned it up. A little edgy. This is a great show song, especially when it's raining!

Last of a Dying Breed (D. Vincent Williams/D. Rollins/T. Conners)
Because of my relationship with General Tommy Franks through these USO tours that I've done, we were fortunate enough to have him come in and lay down a little recitation before this song, which is about the everyday, Middle American, farmer/cowboy type of person. I was reading General Franks' book, and there's one part where his father tells him, as he's going off to war, to "make 'em a hand," which is a slang for doing the best you can for whoever you are workin' for. That got my attention, so I called General Franks, sent him this song, and asked him to write something for it. He was in Nashville one day, so we got him into the studio, and he read through it once, and it was perfect.

That's Life (Eric Silver/Matt Rollings)
Eric Silver wrote this one, and I just fell in love with it. When people cut songs, the ones they choose depend on where they are in their lives. That's why when some artists are going through a divorce, say, they'll have more heartbreak songs. My daughter dated a kid from when she was fifteen until she was eighteen, when he got killed in a car wreck. He was a baseball player, so that second verse, about rounding third base, and the last verse, about sitting on the top of the world and in the blink of an eye fate takes it away from you, hit home to my family and me. It's just about everyday life: Don't get too far up or too far down. Just ride through the middle and you'll be okay. Everything that happens is a part of life.

All Over Again (Don Mescall, Randy Goodrum)
This is the sexy song on the album. It's one of the first ones we found for the album. I especially love the chorus - it almost sounds like something a boy band would sing. A lot of our female listeners will like this. It just kind of draws you in.

Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On (Michael Mobley, Phillip White)
This song is doing exactly what I'd hoped it would do, by getting us back to radio with that attitude of fun that people associate us with. And when we play it live, people go nuts over it. They get involved and sing along and have fun with it. I'd hoped they would do that and they're doing it - and some are even wearing homemade beer goggles!

That's a Picture (Wade Allen Kirby, Bryan Simpson, Ashley Glenn Gorley)
This is good, straight-ahead country that paints a real sweet picture. I love the sentiment in this song.