My album was recorded in Nashville. It used to be all about "We're from Texas, forget Nashville," well you'll never hear me say that. Nashville isn't bad as long as you're true to yourself.

When you're in a room with a guy who has a vision like that, it's just one of those things where you close your eyes and just see that vision - then you just go with it. The guys that I write with are so incredible, just like my producer Trent Willmon, those guys know how to bring things out of me - especially things that I maybe didn't even know that I had.

It's really helped a ton in the sense that we get to reach people who don't normally know our music. At least once a night at a show someone will come up to the merch table after the show and say they've never heard of me but they saw me on Troubadour, TX, and it reminds me that I'm not Elvis and anything I can do to get my name out there is beneficial in every way.

I hate to say stuff like this because everyone dreams about playing The Opry, everyone dreams about playing Gruene Hall, but I've always tried to not concentrate too hard on where I want to go because I know if I put too much stock into it, it would be pretty disappointing if I never got there.

Pushing myself against my own will really, because some of this stuff is hard. I don't consider myself to be a great guitar player, so pushing myself as a guitar player or pushing myself as a singer, as a performer, and just riding that fine line between being so hard on yourself that it's counter-productive and being so hard on yourself that nothing is ever good enough is what drives me.

I really think it's just the people you put around you. For instance, you mentioned "Kiss Goodbye," that was a song that was brought to me by Dan Couch and Dale Oliver. They had already started writing it without. They had put together this whole demo of music with no lyrics.

I try to make sure that, when I'm writing, I don't put too much Cody in it. But I don't want to lose it either.