Will Hoge

"There was just such a comfort level with him that it made it easy," Hoge notes. "It's like when two dogs meet: There's a lot of butt-sniffing involved the first time you work with someone. The hardest thing in working with a producer is that there's a lot of trust involved. You have to know if this guy is telling you to rework the bridge or something because it would make the song better, or because he wants to put his stamp on it. We got all that out of the way a long time ago, and we could just get down to work. And hopefully there will be less butt-sniffing next time around.

Grin-inducing headlines aside, Hoge and Coomer ended up with one of the richest, most diverse collections of songs that Hoge has put together thus far. The stripped-down approach allowed him to explore the songs in greater detail, building a more complete tapestry from the simple roots of each song. His live-performance swagger is still present on many of them; on "Midnight Parade," Hoge eerily evokes Van Morrison singing Bruce Springsteen's "Rosalita" with a healthy dose of fiddle and lap steel behind him. But the singer has also allowed himself to leave songs like "I'm Sorry Now" in a more naked final form, highlighting the pain that, though always present in his voice, is often masked by bombast.

"Writing slower, quieter songs is one of those things you like to be able to try as a songwriter," he confides. "I'm going to sound really pretentious here, but you want to expand your palette as much as possible. One of those things is to be able to do quiet stuff. We have a fiddle player with us now, and 'Sorry Now' is one of the songs that's become a lot of fun to play. From a live-show perspective, you want to be able to run the gamut between hard-rock songs and showcasing individual bandmembers."

But playing quieter songs has not come without challenges. In another blog entry, Hoge joked about naming his current tour with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit the "Shut the Fuck Up" tour. But he's quick to point out that people are starting to catch on to the idea of actually listening.

"It's gotten less and less 'talky' at shows," he allows. "I don't think we realized it so much until this record, which has a quieter tone to it. Luckily, people have been pretty respectful. I guess when they're not, it stands out more. There's a person at every third or fourth show who is drunk and yakking to their friends, but people in the crowd generally get them to be quiet. I guess that's why they don't serve alcohol at the movies."

But again, he's not complaining. With a new album out on a new label, and embarking on yet another tour, Hoge seems downright giddy.

"I'm grateful I get to do this for a living," he reiterates. "If you stop to think about it, that's more than what 90 percent of musicians ever get to do. Again, I'm not paving roads. The fact that sometimes I have to sing through a shitty monitor isn't the worst thing in the world."