1. “Make or Break Me”
“I wrote the chorus to this song in probably 30 seconds: ‘I’m still the same man I was the first day ...’ and the next two lines. It came to me real quick. But then I couldn’t figure out anything for verses. I was stuck! Months later I still had that chorus stuck in my head, so I called my buddy, Ryan Beaver, to help co-write this song. I said, ‘Man, I’ve got this great chorus; I just need a verse for it.’ After I got to his house, we wrote the first verse in what felt like 15 seconds. So ... after a four-month hiatus, the song was finished in 15 minutes. You can say it took four months, but it was actually about 16 minutes with a four-month nap in between.”
2. “Prove It to You”
“This is the first song I ever wrote with my friend Geoff Hill [Randy Rogers Band]. I had written the guitar hook a few weeks before and came to the writing session with it. Luckily Geoff liked the hook/guitar lick, and soon the song wrote itself. It also has an amazing guitar solo by Karl Schwoch! This will be a song in our live set list for a looong time.”
3. “Mistakes I’ll Regret”
“I wrote this with George Ducas. He’s written so many great, great songs (“Just Call Me Lonesome” with Radney Foster, “Real Fine Place to Start” for Sara Evans and more). I went to Nashville with the first line of that song: ‘I’m a grown man, but I’m not old yet.’ He liked it, so we wrote that song at his house in Nashville in about two or three hours. I do write a bunch of songs that are about love and relationships, but this song isn’t about that. This song is about growing up and realizing that you’re never finished making mistakes. There’s always going to be something to come up where you’re going to have to learn from your mistakes in the future. This song has a real cool message.”
4. “The Heart of You”
“Every time I write a new song, it’s always my current favorite song. But this song was still my favorite even after writing more than half a dozen songs. I love playing and singing this song. When I wrote this song it was so much slower, but it really picked up and came alive once I got in the studio and started cutting it. It just goes to show that a song can change all the way up until the moment before you record it!”
5. “I Love Her for a Million Reasons”
“The title was just a funny idea that Geoff Hill (of the Randy Rogers Band) and I had. It’s the idea of a woman who has ‘more dollars than sense.’ I never thought I would record this in a million years. I wrote it to be funny and to have fun. I grew up listening to country music, and I never would have heard something like this on the radio when I was growing up. But I love the guitar solos. I like rock n’ roll music, too. I think the song is so up-tempo and so much fun to play live, and the crowds really get into it!”
6. “All Night”
“I love the lyrical melody and the acoustic guitar/steel guitar dual solo to this song and the entire instrumentation choices. The chorus and the verses are two different songs to me, too. The verses are quick, but the chorus has those holdouts. Very cool and fun.”
“Any Day or Night”
"My all-time favorite waltz I’ve recorded, and one my favorite songs on the album. I wrote this song probably four years ago, and it means a lot to me; not because the lyrics touch home, just because I think it paints such a great picture in a short amount of time. I’m a sucker for waltzes, and I love a good slow song like this. Lyrically it’s simple and melodically it turned out just perfect. I love it.”
7. “I’m Missing You”
“I like this song from a songwriter’s standpoint, although it's one of - if not THE - the most basic songs I’ve ever written. But I like how the song is simple yet says exactly what needs to be said. It took only 20 minutes or so to write 80 percent of that song (choruses and verses). It wasn't until later that I changed a few lines to make it the way it is now.”
8. “Leavin’ Stephenville”
“A cool song that I co-wrote with Ryan Beaver I honestly didn’t think I would ever record. But after DJ Adam Drake (then with Aggie96 in College Station) posted a video of me playing it live at the radio station, it became an online fan favorite. Who knows? It could be a radio single someday!”
9. “What You’ll Never Know”
“Friends and peers weren’t sure if I should cut this song at first, and even a couple of guys in the band. But I would say, ‘That’s okay, I guess I hear it different than you do.’ I don’t even know how much sense it makes, except sometimes the truth is better left unsaid in relationships, in a bad way. The truth hurts. Sometimes it’s best to just stay happy and keep it simple. Everyone has bones in their closet. That’s what this song is about.”
10. “Just a Fake Smile”
“I wrote this song in 2008, soon after I recorded my second album, ANYWHERE IN TEXAS. I drew inspiration for this song from an ex-relationship. I found both her and me guilty of having a fake smile when we would be mad, nervous, uncomfortable, envious, jealous, etc., of/at the other, for whatever reason. After we split up, I wrote this song.
And it’s true: Everyone has a fake smile.”
11. “Brokenhearted”
"That’s me on baritone. At the beginning of recording, I didn’t have a guitar hook for that song. All the guitar licks I came up with I didn’t like. I knew it didn’t need fiddle or steel guitar, which is usually my ‘go-to’ move. So I thought, ‘How about a baritone? That would be real creepy and dark, like the song. Sure enough, that’s what I chose to do. How creepy.”
12. “I Think You’re in Love” and
“This is definitely a real feel-good, easy-going, pure ol’ love song. I wrote this song after a writing session with Monty Warden (who wrote “Desperately” with Bruce Robison for George Strait). He told me that day, ‘Try to write a love song and make sure that every word is what a girl wants to hear.’ The next week I was at home and wrote this song.”
“Whatever It Takes”
“This was another song that my manager and some of the guys in the band thought, ‘I don’t know if this song is the best song to cut because it’s not really ‘you,’ and I thought, ‘That’s why it’s so cool! That’s why I want to do it!’ I had all of these parts in my head and so many instruments in mind. There’s baritone, multiple fiddles, steel guitar, piano, a cool bass line at the end, a couple of acoustic guitars and lots harmony vocals on it. There are just so many things going on to make that song big. That’s what I was going for. I wanted to make it as big as possible.”
“Overboard (It’s Over)”
“I love the lyrics to both the verses and the chorus to this song. It was really fun writing something so true through dramatic examples. And the slide guitar playing is too cool!”
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