Trace Adkins' new album Something's Going On drops March 31 and his tour of the same name continues March 23-August 18. The country singer sat down with us to discuss the process of creating the album, his upcoming tour, and Adkins spends his free time.
NL: Can you tell us about the process of making your latest album, Something's Going On?
TA: The process was no different from any other, except for the first one, because you don't know what you're doing. But it was the same process. We finished Love Will... and started looking for material. What happens a lot of times is that you finish a record and you come up with something and say, 'Oh, I wish I could have put that on that record!” For this one, the only difference about this one was the length of time we took to make itI didn't have a record label breathing down my neck telling me to hurry up and get something out. This is the first album with the new music group and we took our time.
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NL: What are some things fans can expect from your upcoming tour?
TA: We do a greatest hits show. I'm at that point in my career where fans come to the show and they want to hear the hits, so that's what we'll do. We don't subject them to a lot of new material that they haven't heard. We'll throw a couple new things in there, but we're going to give them what they came to hear.
NL: Your new lyric video for the singleWatered Down was filmed on your farm in Tennessee. What was it like to shoot at home?
TA: We've shot a lot of stuff out there. As a matter of fact, I heard somebody the other day say 'We're not shooting anything else at his farm! We've shot so much stuff out there. We are going somewhere else.” It's fun to shoot stuff at your own place. You're not going to be anymore comfortable than that.
NL: You're an advocate for the armed forces. What are some organizations you support?
TA: I do Wounded Warrior Projects. We do a lot of work with USO, and then the Red Cross. That's kind of a local thing because I go let them have my blood.
NL: You've been developing as an actor throughout the years. Do you have any new film or television roles in the works?
TA: I've got a couple movies that will come out this year. One of them was a western I did called Abilene and then I did a movie called I Can Only Imagine. It's the same guys I did Mom's Night Out with so that movie will come out some time this year probably in the fall.
NL: When you aren't performing or recording, how do you like to spend your time?
TA: It's really therapeutic for me to work hard until the end of the dayI just hang out at the farm and run a chainsaw or my tractor. It's very gratifying. I don't really have any hobbies, other than I play golf when I'm on the road, but I don't play when I'm home because I've got work to do.
NL: As a seasoned artist, what wisdom would you pass on to the generation of local musicians coming behind you?
TA: If I could go back and talk to that guy 22 years ago that just got a record deal, I would tell him to be patient. Don't spend a lot of time worrying about something you can't do anything about. I remember early in my career I was a chart-watcher. It took me a few years to learn that I was worrying about things that I literally couldn't do anything about and how much time I wasted doing that.
What I would tell young guys and girls today is do the best you can do in the studio, write the best songs you can write, perform the best you can every time you get a chance to do it, then trust in your management, record label, and everybody else to do the other stuff, and literally don't worry about it. Don't even think about it. You just do what you do. Don't worry about it.