Depending on who you ask, Jake Owen might be responsible for the very first bro country song. His 2011 hit “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” wasn’t the first party-ready ode to Southern summers and ice-cold beer, but its slick mix of country signifiers and stadium-rock production – courtesy of Joey Moi, best known for producing Nickelback and later Morgan Wallen – proved highly influential, arguably paving the way for crossover smashes like Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” and Blake Shelton’s “Boys ‘Round Here.”

“Never gonna grow up, never gonna slow down,” Owen sang on his signature hit, neatly summing up the youth-obsessed ethos of the bro country era. Now 44 and newly independent after 20 years on RCA Nashville and later Big Loud, he’s singing a different tune.

“I’ve made a lot of records that had a fantasy, ‘Remember when we were young?’ kind of feel to them,” Owen told Good Country. “What feels good about this new record is that I can listen to it and feel like I’m listening to my life right now. It’s very real.”

Dreams to Dream, Owen’s eighth studio album and his first with Shooter Jennings producing, is a sharp left turn for an artist known for hits like “Beachin,’” “I Was Jack (You Were Diane),” and “American Country Love Song.” Earlier this year, Owen decamped to LA amid the wildfires, leaving the comfort of Nashville behind in search of creative truth and a more organic sound. The result is one of the year’s best and most surprising country albums, which trades bro-ish bravado for world-weary introspection and a classic-country sensibility.

The title track is a rollicking, country-rock statement of purpose that name-checks Hank Williams, Jr. and establishes the stakes: “I’ve been down, but I ain’t no quitter/ ‘Bout to get up on my feet/ ‘Cause I still got dreams to dream,” Owen sings in the rousing chorus. On the Troy Jones-penned “Wouldn’t Be Gone,” he muses about leaving stardom behind to work in a hardware store. (“I already know a thing or two about hardwood floors,” goes the song’s best line.) Other standouts include “Chill of December,” a Haggardian expression of winter loneliness, and “The One I Did It To,” a doleful admission of romantic wrongdoing.

In a Q&A, Owen spoke to Good Country about teaming up with Jennings, defining authenticity on his own terms, and why he doesn’t shy away from his bro country past.

This album is a departure from the sound that you’re best known for. What made now the right time to do an album like this?

Jake Owen: My life has always been about timing and believing that I’m supposed to be where I am. The album’s called Dreams to Dream and it came about because I was in this interesting place in my life where I’ve had a record deal for 20 years and, all of a sudden, I’m doing something on my own. Which felt kind of like freedom, but also felt very scary.

For a long time I was focused on the more commercialized songs that would work on radio, since I was on a major label, and I felt like this is the time to make the kind of record that I’ve always really loved. I’ve always tried to follow my heart and what my intuitions have told me. They haven’t always been right, but I definitely follow them.

What was it like working with Shooter Jennings?

He really exceeded my expectations. I expected to go out there and make a record, but I didn’t know I would leave there with an awesome new friend and somebody that really believed in me as a person with dreams and a purpose and things they wanted to say. He was so encouraging to me. I felt safe with him, which is a weird way to put it, I guess. But you need people to pat you on the back and tell you that you’re doing the right thing.

It also was at a time when – I’m not ashamed to say it – there were not a lot of people ringing my phone in Nashville to tell me they were proud of 20 years of what I’d done in my career and 11 number one songs. Kind of weird, right? But the one guy that was calling me and applauding me and telling me that I could do way better, bigger things in my life than what I’d already done was Shooter Jennings. Out of all people, right? That says so much about how much he loves music and believes in people. I think you’d probably hear that same answer from anybody else that he’s worked with.

The second song on the album, “Them Old Love Songs,” is a Waylon Jennings cover. Why did covering Waylon make sense for this record?

Well, there was no part of me going out there that thought I would do any covers. But Shooter and I just talked about life and music out there, and he was saying that his dad always would cut cover songs for fun when he came off the road. Shooter would encourage me, each night or whenever we were done with the session, to do some covers and just have some fun. With that one in particular, I was nervous to ask Shooter, because it felt a little cliché. I wondered how many people work with him and have wanted to do that or if he’s offended by that.

But I always loved that song and the album that it’s on, Are You Ready for the Country. It’s pretty wild, because that album starts off really rocking, and then it goes into that. To me, if you listen to that song, the lyrics say, “I wish I had a true fine woman/ Let her rock me all night long/ And maybe we could get it together/ Like people do in them old love songs.” I’ve been singing that my whole life and it’s still the way I dream of love. And then, going back to the first verse, it says, “Nobody cares where I’m going, all they know is I’m coming back.” I don’t think anybody cared that I was going to make a record with Shooter. Nobody really even knew.

Also, one of the reasons Shooter and I decided to make this album was our love for the Hank Williams Jr. record, The New South, that his dad actually produced. Hank moved to Alabama to make that album, I think it was in 1977, and said he needed to get out of Music City because he wanted to go make his kind of music with his friends. And I felt the same way. Like, here I am going to LA to make a record with Shooter, and he’s encouraging me like Waylon encouraged Hank. So recording that Waylon song, with Shooter producing it, it just felt right.

You recently celebrated the 20-year anniversary of moving to Nashville and signing your first record deal with RCA. You made a post referring to “the highest of highs and lowest of lows” in your career. Could you tell me about some of those highs and lows?

Yeah, well, first off, thanks for even acknowledging that, which I think is important to the reasoning behind this whole record in general. I would start off by telling you that the highest high for me was just moving to Nashville and knowing that something was ahead of me. When I left college, I left my twin brother and a lot of my friends and my entire family at home in Florida. I still look back on that guy, and I’m like, “What the fuck was I thinking?” But I guess I just had to chase it. And then getting to Nashville and immersing yourself with people that are so much better than you are, I just didn’t have that where I was in college in Tallahassee. I kind of felt alone. Getting a record deal was also a big part of that, feeling like I had accomplished part of what I came here to do. And then I spent the next seven years having to figure out how to keep the guys in the band paid and the buses rolling on the road and how to get my first number one song. Everybody thinks that’s the easy part once you sign the record deal, but it really wasn’t. It was a rude awakening.

And I went through a divorce. I got married, I had a kid. It’s like the classic country song shit, man. I think that was a big low for me, having to leave my family to go on the road. I had been very successful from my dreams that I chased, but the one thing that I probably desired the most, outside of music, was a family life. The one thing that I’ve never been good at and I haven’t figured out is that real solid relationship in life, building love and trust, and that bothers me a lot. It bothers me that I can be good at a lot of other things, and that is the most important thing to me, and I haven’t been so great at it.

You were a major player in the bro country era, which is now having this sort of nostalgic reappraisal. I’m thinking of the HARDY and Ernest song “Bro Country,” which is an ode to that time in country music. When you think about that era, what goes through your mind?

It’s funny, because I don’t know that anybody has said this before, but I’ll tell you right now: I started that shit. Everybody wants to shy away from bro country or whatever, but I invented that shit. And yeah, I am proud, in a way. I remember being at a time in my career where I had a record deal for seven or eight years and I had a couple songs that had done all right, but I was feeling like I was gonna lose my record deal if I didn’t try to do some different shit. And I didn’t have a producer at the time. I’d left Tony Brown, who was great. And he’s like, “Hey, man, you should meet this guy, Joey Moi. I think he’d be great for you.”

Joey obviously came from Nickelback and all that. At the time, no different than when I left Tallahassee for Nashville, everybody was like, “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” So here’s a guy now from Nickelback who’s gonna try out making country music on me, which was probably a crazy thing, too. It wasn’t that I was trying to sell out. If anything, I look back and I’m like, “Dude, I had the balls to just do something different at the time.”

“Barefoot Blue Jean Night” was our first release and it had all of these claps and stomps and loop shit. It ended up being the most-played song of the decade [according to Country Aircheck]. I have the plaque on my wall. It was a major, major changing point in my life and career, because it worked. Not only did I keep making those songs for the next few years, but it influenced a shit-ton of people.

I think a lot of people might want to avoid that association. It’s kind of like the way that ‘80s rock and roll gets shit on sometimes, but there are still people in their cars cranking it to 11, right? If you look back at my early career, the songs I was writing were very country, because that’s what I always loved. I went on tour with Brooks & Dunn and Alan Jackson. So when all of a sudden, years later, all of the people that were my heroes were like, “I hate this kid,” it kind of hurt my feelings. But I always knew in my heart that I would get back to what brought me to the table.

Among the detractors you alluded to, people who are into more traditional-sounding country music, there’s this idea that pop-country or bro country is inauthentic. What do you think is “authentic” country music?

Authenticity is the ability for artists to take any type of music and just make it their own. Johnny Cash never shot a man in Reno. But it was a huge song for him. George Jones didn’t write “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” but he owns that song. Stardust is the biggest album Willie Nelson ever released and he didn’t write a single song on it. And he’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Authenticity isn’t about where somebody’s from or how they grew up. If you own what you’re doing, and you deliver it in a way that’s believable, I think that’s authentic.

I’m thinking now of this back-and-forth you had with Jason Isbell a couple years ago about artists writing their own songs.

Yeah, dude. That guy. I love Jason Isbell, that’s what’s crazy. Some of the artists that I love the most just spout off at the mouth. The other day I said something about Zach Bryan. I love that guy’s music too, right? He’s amazing, and he’s also uber successful – selling 120,000 tickets or whatever, which I could never even fathom. And Jason is out winning GRAMMYs on top of being an incredible guitar player, so much more talented than I could ever dream of being. But I don’t understand why guys like that will take the time on shit on someone else’s music.

That’s never made sense to me and it’s always made me want to just ask that question directly to them. Which is what I did to Jason. I was just like, “Dude, I’m not going to get into an argument with you over Twitter, so give me your number. I’m going to just call you and have a conversation about why you feel this way.” He and I had a great conversation. And he was very cool to acknowledge and entertain my questioning behind why he would just spout at the mouth about stuff like that. We both ended it at the time – and this was years ago, when I was drinking, or maybe he was – he’s like, “Dude, we should catch a beer sometime.”

So, to go back to the authenticity thing, there’s so many people that are so great at a lot of things. One of my absolute favorite artists right now is Charley Crockett and he does that, too. I wonder, sometimes, I’m like, “Why are you guys all trying to prove to one another that you’re more authentic than the next guy?” Sorry, you can tell I’m getting tense talking about it. But I’m confused by it, because those guys make some of my favorite music and it bothers me that they feel the need to try to blow somebody else’s candle out in order to make their already blazing one shining brighter.

I wonder if part of you wanted to prove to that type of person that you could make one of these really rooted, quote-unquote “authentic,” hardcore country records.

I think it was about proving to myself what my intuitions are and what my beliefs have always been about what’s right for me. I also really needed somebody to tell me that what I was doing was the right decision, and Shooter never wavered. He was constantly telling me, “Dude, this is it. You’re going to open up a Pandora’s box for your career in ways that I don’t think you’ve seen before.” I will say that it’s definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things and a lot of people reached out to me that have never reached out to me before.

One of my favorite songwriters, artists, people I’m a huge fan of is Brandy Clark. I think she’s incredible and just a brilliant songwriter. And she happened to be in LA when I was there and stopped by to see Shooter. She called me after and I just started crying. Because she was like, “Jake, I’m so happy for you. Like, I hear you in this.” It was just so fulfilling to hear that from her. She didn’t have to do that, but I was so moved by it.

I’m grateful for people that don’t think about music from a standpoint of judgment, but look at it as a possibility of something greater.

Photo Credit: Spidey Smith