This is Big Machine Radio. I am Becca and we are so glad to have you joining us for the Aaron Lewis
State I'm In album release special. If you're a fan of stone cold country music well you're
gonna love this album. And just to give you a heads up normally we record these specials in
a studio where it's nice and soundproof but Aaron and I decided he'd be more comfortable sitting in
his own backyard so that is what we are doing. You might hear some outdoor elements like birds
and dogs and whatever else is going on around us but we're going to go through Aaron's entire
album and hear directly from him about every song on State I'm In. So first of all Aaron thank you
for being here with us we appreciate you sitting down and being willing to talk about this album.
My pleasure. I was just thinking because you know when I was going back over and said it's
your third country album I know this because I've spoken to you before about the other albums but
sometimes I just forget how deep you are into this. Are there still people who are discovering
Aaron Lewis the country singer? I think so. Yeah I mean do you get maybe some of your rock fans
that come to your shows and they're like oh hey wait a minute. Well there's always been a group
of the rock fans that have just put up with the change. Ah okay. And there's some that have fully
embraced it and there's some that have not embraced it at all. Are they vocal about that? Yeah
everybody is. Okay all right. Well based on the songs and the the lyrics on this album I don't
want to assume anything but I mean it is filled with a lot of heartache, a lot of loss, a lot of
reckoning. So it seems to me that this is all sort of coming from somewhere very personal
but can you tell me is this pretty autobiographical and and what do you hope that people get after
listening to this album or what was your hope that they would hear in these songs? My songs
have always been very autobiographical which means I don't write my songs for other people
so I'm not really hoping that other people are getting anything out of it. I'm hoping that I'm
getting what I need to get out of it. Okay. And that's really how I've always approached writing
songs and I think that's why they tend to come off pretty genuine because I'm writing them for me.
So people would not be incorrect if they sort of read into this album that I mean this is almost
like a journal that you are laying out where you've been, where your heart's at, where your
head's at. It was a tough record to write hence why I ended up using some other people's songs.
You know I really the couple songs that I did write had such an effect on me and what was coming
out of me was I don't know that I was ready for it so in my typical fashion I avoided it
and took advantage of the fact that I'm here in Nashville and there's plenty of people here in
Nashville that that would love me to record one of their songs. So I recorded a couple songs that
really impacted me in a similar manner than if I had written them but there was still a separation.
You know when I heard them I felt them for sure. I didn't hear them in a I'm shopping for songs
kind of a way. Sure. For instance Reconsider I was familiar with that Keith Gaddis record
way before we went into the studio. Same with The Bottom.