Jake Owen on Juggling Fatherhood and Nation Music Stardom

Jake Owen hasn’t had a brand new studio album out in 4 years. However he’s OK with that.

“I’ve been making tons of music and being a dad,” the chart-topping nation artist says throughout a fast journey by means of New York to carry out on “Good Morning America.”

Owen, whose seventh album, “Unfastened Cannon,” will drop on June 23, has two daughters: Olive Pearl, 10, with ex-wife Lacey Buchanan, and Paris Hartley, 4, with fiancée Erica Hartlein, and he’s embraced the time he’s carved out to spend with them.

“To me, household and love are extra vital than chasing a unending dream,” he says. “My desires are already fulfilled with my kids, so I don’t are likely to put a lot emphasis on what the subsequent step within the ladder might be. I don’t have to chase something anymore. However don’t get me improper – I nonetheless love music.”

No shock there with a profession that features 10 number-one singles and greater than 2.5 billion U.S. on-demand streams. The 41-year-old Winter Haven, Florida, native signed his first file deal in 2006 and over the subsequent 17 years has change into a mainstay on nation radio with such smash hits as “Barefoot Blue Jean Night time,” “Alone with You,” “Do-it-yourself,” and numerous extra.

The brand new album has 16 cuts, a lot of them quintessential feel-good summer season songs akin to “Mates Don’t Let Mates,” “Scorching Truck Beer” and “Solo Solo.” However there are additionally slower, extra “reflective” cuts that Owen says converse to his life right this moment. “I’m not a younger child anymore however I’m not previous both. And once I pay attention to those songs, I feel it’s a great spectrum of who I used to be, who I’m and who I need to be.”

However with the entire materials, he says it’s “simply music that represents my life.”

And he’s proud to say that he didn’t write one music on the album. “I feel there’s a giant false impression throughout the music enterprise — particularly nation music — [that you need to write your own songs,] which is ironic to me as a result of Nashville might be the main place on this planet for nice songwriters,” he says. “Individuals like Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, and George Strait — a few of my favourite artists of all time — don’t write all their songs. I embraced the songwriting neighborhood some years again in Nashville and I’ve loved listening to a music that claims every thing that I might need to say that I possibly didn’t have the flexibility to jot down with my very own pen.”

That’s very true of the title observe, “Unfastened Cannon,” which was written by Matt Roy, whom he didn’t even know, however the lyrics had been spot on: “So long as you’re my rock, I’ll be your landslide. So long as you’re my anchor, I’ll be your free cannon.”

“I’m a really wild, hard-headed form of man that’s all the time obtained issues happening,” he says. “And I’m actually blessed to haven’t solely my fiancée, however my two ladies in my life — these anchors, these rocks that maintain me regular. And I believed that music simply stated it so effectively.”

One other of his favorites on the album is “The Ending,” written by Rodney Clawson, Luke Laird and Chris Tompkins. “It’s a really well-written music a few relationship that they had all found out apart from the ending. I really like the best way individuals look again at their lives and all the time marvel what would have been if issues would have labored out a technique or one other. That’s what life is all about — you’ll be able to’t script it.”

To advertise the album, Owen will hit the street this summer season and fall, taking part in festivals and different venues. And his 10-year-old might be on tour with him. “It’s her favourite factor,” he says. “It’s form of like summer season camp on the street. All people treats her like a queen and she or he will get to do no matter she needs. And we spend loads of high quality time collectively that I don’t get when she’s in class.”

Even when he’s touring alone and he can’t be together with his daughters, Owen isn’t complaining. “Lots of people on this world go to work as a result of they must. I’m going to work as a result of I like to. And that’ll by no means get previous to me. Clearly sleeping in a mattress that strikes 80 miles an hour shouldn’t be straightforward, however whenever you love one thing, it by no means appears like work.”

The opposite factor that doesn’t really feel like work is his golf recreation. As a teen, Owen wished to pursue taking part in golf professionally. However after a wakeboarding accident throughout his school years mangled his shoulder, the damage was so extreme that his desires of being a PGA skilled had been dashed. So he discovered to play the guitar and determined to pivot into music as a substitute.

However Owen continues to be a low handicap golfer and a frequent participant in pro-am tournaments. His most up-to-date look was on the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio, the place he was paired with Jordan Spieth.  Though Spieth is greater than a decade youthful, Owen says they’ve bonded over golf and fatherhood. “It’s simply been nice watching his profession blossom and see him go from a younger, dominant child to managing a spouse and a baby. Irrespective of who you might be, when you’ve got a baby and also you get married, there’s now a accountability that you just by no means had whenever you had been only a single man being a bit egocentric. There are loads of sacrifices that you need to make in your personal profession to place what’s most vital first, and that’s your loved ones and your kids.”

Owen can also be an investor in TMRW Sports activities, the brand new digital golf league created by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy that’s slated to kick off subsequent yr. Though the idea continues to be a bit hazy and the league was created earlier than the latest blockbuster announcement of the merger between the PGA and LIV sports activities, Owen opted to get in as a result of it “appeared like a great group of fellows to be concerned with and I really like golf.” Different entertainers who’ve invested embody DJ Khaled, Justin Bieber, Macklemore and Darius Rucker.

“I’m a fan of fellows like Tiger and Rory that make a dedication to the sport of golf, and need to develop it in ways in which honor the sport, however give it some development. I feel the identical goes for our style of nation music. I simply look ahead to hopefully being an envoy in nation music.” He factors to at least one under-the-radar artist, Zach High, a 25-year-old traditionalist, who’s certainly one of his present favorites.

“We’re fortunate that it’s only a unending expertise pool of youngsters arising. And I feel it’s vital for individuals like me to applaud them, pat them on the again and encourage them.”

He also can educate them a factor or two about style. Though his off-the-stage outfits are likely to focus on coastal beach-inspired seems to be, he ups the ante considerably on the purple carpet.

“I really like pushing boundaries with regards to award reveals and I’ve all the time leaned in direction of trying very good,” he says. That ranges from Vivienne Westwood to bedazzled Manuel jackets. “He’s iconic with regards to making fits for everybody from Gram Parsons to me,” Owen says of the Mexican-American designer. “The blue coat I’m sporting on the quilt of my album is by Manuel, and that’s actually, actually particular.”