Blake Shelton is back with new music for the first time in two years and he’s looking to keep things exciting like his idol, Conway Twitty did throughout his career.

“Every time I make a record, I try and take a step in some other direction,” Shelton said when sharing why he decided to record the new single, “Texas.” “Whether it’s a step forward — sometimes it’s a step backwards,” he laughed. “Just something different than I did the last time.”

He continued, “I always loved Conway Twitty for that reason. If you listen to his entire catalog, if you listen to every record, he’s kind of all over the place with what he did and he kept it exciting. He was a song guy more than anything else. I want to be that also.”

Keeping things different, exciting and song-driven is exactly what Shelton did with the new single, which he admits took him some time to come around to since it’s unlike anything he’s ever recorded. “I first heard the song and I thought, ‘I love the song, but I don’t think I could get away with doing that.’” He shared. “I just had a hard time picturing myself singing it because it’s so different than anything that I’ve ever done before.”

“When I finally told Scott Hendricks [producer], I said, ‘OK, I’m going to try ‘Texas,’ and he said ‘Oh, thank God…’ And we had a blast when we got in there and made that record because we kept trying things, we messed with it so much.”

From an ode to “The Good The Bad and the Ugly,” to the sounds of a hawk,Shelton says there’s lots of sonic surprises if you listen closely. “We were having so much fun with it and we had to stop because they told us it was time to release the song, so here we are,” he laughed. In addition to the surprises added via production, there’s also several references to the King of Country, George Strait throughout.

“There’s several George Strait references in the song and they kind of flew past me,” Shelton said of the first time he listened. “The first time I heard it, I heard it mention George Strait but then I was going, ‘On, no. There’s ‘Amarillo By Morning’ and there’s ‘All My Exes Live In Texas.’ The song is super fun even though it’s about a guy getting dumped.”

Hear even more about the song, new music as well as one of Shelton’s most classic hits, “Austin,” by listening to his entire interview with Audacy’s Rob + Holly on the Friday Night Takeover above.

Words by Mnica Rivera, Interview by Rob + Holly

Photo: Bryan Steffy/Getty Images,

Chris Janson joins Rob + Holly backstage at a the 58th Annual CMA Awards to share details surrounding his health journey and how he feels after giving up Mountain Dew. Plus, his goals outside of music.

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Chayce Beckham joins Rob + Holly backstage at a the 58th Annual CMA Awards to talk haircare and his love for fire.

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Cole Swindell joins Rob + Holly backstage at the 58th Annual CMA Awards to talk his performance at Red Rocks and being a newly married man.

Photo: Jason Kempin/Getty Images

New music from Mitchell Tenpenny is here and with it, comes some genre-bending tracks that might have traditional Country fans questioning its Country authenticity. However, for Tenpenny — that’s the least of his worries.

“I get people wanting just traditional Country and that’s fine,” he said in his conversation with Audacy’s Rob + Holly during the Friday Night Takeover. “But, when people are like, ‘It doesn’t sound like Willie [Nelson], I’m like, ‘What? Do you want me to copy somebody else? Is that what you’re asking me to do?’ That’s the biggest plagiarism there is. I don’t want to sound like anybody else, I want to sound like what I am. If you like it, great. If you don’t, by all means, go do something else… I don’t like the box people put country in. It’s not up to them — it truly isn’t.”

True fans of Tenpenny know authenticity is the last thing they have to worry about when it comes to the Nashville native, especially with his latest album, The 3rd, a title that literally represents who he is — James Mitchell Tenpenny III.

“I want to — first and foremost — always be authentic in what I’m releasing for me,” he said when asked what listeners can expect to hear from the project. “I wanted people to feel like, ‘this is definitely him, this is Mitchell, this is what he does.’”

He continued, “With that… incorporating a lot of different chambers and production of genres into this one record. For me, it’s Country through and through because of the way we tell the stories through the lyrics, but I also love all kinds of music, so I’m blending in what I love with where my heart is — which is country music — and the way we tell the story. This one for me was important to show all the different genres and what I’ve loved and grew up playing in bands and what is truly me, but focused in on the songwriting part.”

His focus on songwriting is clear as he has writing credit on every single song, but one, which is a cover of Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris,” a track with a lot of nostalgia for the 35-year-old. “I just remember seeing that song on MTV when they were like, playing in the rain when I was a kid,” he explained. “I was like, ‘That would be so cool to do a show like that like, ‘I don’t care about my instruments or anything breaking, it’s Rock ’N Roll!”

He continued, “That song, it’s so good. It makes you feel something every single time you hear it. So nostalgic for me... I just love it.”

Hear Mitchell’s cover of, “Iris,” along with the 19 other tracks that make up his third studio album by listening to The 3rd, available now. Plus, hear more from him by checking out his entire interview with Audacy’s Rob. Holly above.

Words by Monica Rivera, Interview by Rob + Holly

Photo: Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

Dylan Marlowe talks with Rob + Holly at Stars & Strings 2024.

Photo by Derek White/Getty Images for Audacy

Bailey Zimmerman backstage at Stars & Strings with Rob + Holly

Rob + Holly talk with Riley Green backstage at Audacy's Stars & Strings 2024.

Photo: Derek White/Getty Images for Audacy