Mitchell Tenpenny Visits Gravesites of His Late Father and Grandfather in Emotional Video for 'The 3rd' (Exclusive)

"I thought about it, and I decided that I wanted people to see the name on the stone and understand why this song was written," the country star tells PEOPLE

Mitchell Tenpenny had a hard time deciding if he should put his full name into the powerful lyrics of his new song "The 3rd."

"It was weird singing my name," Tenpenny, 34, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. "I didn't know how that was going to feel, to be honest. I kind of struggled with that when we were writing it. I wanted it to feel like something people could understand. Like, this is how I feel [about my name], and I'm hoping you feel the same about yours."

And what the platinum-selling artist feels about his full name ‘James Mitchell Tenpenny’ is pride, as it’s this name that he shares with both his late father and grandfather.

"I am proud of where I've come from and I'm proud that they gave me that name," says the “Drunk Me” hitmaker. "But yeah, there is a pressure that comes with wanting to make sure you keep your family name good and clean, to hopefully make them proud of you."

And it’s this often-hidden trepidation that Tenpenny faces during the powerful song "The 3rd," which he wrote alongside longtime collaborators Devin Dawson, Andy Albert and Paul DiGiovanni. "I've been wanting to write this forever," admits Tenpenny. "And the fact that they wanted to write it with me meant the world to me."

The backbone of "The 3rd" has in fact been a long time coming, as it’s a sensitive subject that Tenpenny says he often discusses with his wife, fellow musician Meghan Patrick.

"There's a lot of responsibility that comes with [passing a name down]," Tenpenny explains. "What am I going to do if I have a kid too? Do I have to give him that name if it's a boy? I've been thinking a lot about it, especially since my wife and I are talking about kids. It's just something that's been on my mind since we've gotten married."

An emotional song became even moreso for Tenpenny when he went to film the music video for "The 3rd," a cinematic beauty premiering exclusively on PEOPLE.

"Honestly, that was a little strange," Tenpenny says of visiting the gravesites of his late father and grandfather in the touching music video. "I didn't know how I was going to truly feel. Did I want to go the grave and do I want to sing? And I thought about it, and I decided that I wanted people to see the name on the stone and understand why this song was written. Without them, I'm obviously not here."

It's a story Tenpenny says he is now ready to tell.

"A lot of people don't know that I'm only one of the third that are alive to this day," says Tenpenny, who lost his father in 2014 and his grandfather in 2007. "So, going to their graves in the video was something I wanted to do. I wanted it to be impactful and I thought it would be respectful enough that my dad and my granddad would be proud to see it."

But never did anyone expect what happened next.

"We had no idea it was going to rain," remembers Tenpenny. "We were out at my house, which is about 35 minutes from the grave site, and we just felt like it was time to go film the video, and we wanted to do it in one take. Everything was feeling right. And as we get there, the clouds just start getting darker. And right when we started walking up there to the cemetery, it started raining. And I was like, 'What a moment.'"

It was also a moment that Tenpenny says he has been avoiding as of late.

"I don't go there all the time,”"Tenpenny says quietly about visiting the cemetery. "It's probably been, honestly, a couple years since I have. Sometimes there's moments where I want to go by and then sometimes, I don't know if I want to think about that right now. So just being there was definitely an emotional experience for me. I'm glad I did it."

It was this moment that joins a myriad of moments and life lessons that will soon find themselves wrapped within Tenpenny’s upcoming album The 3rd, set for release Sept. 20.

"I would definitely say the album really covers what I have learned in the last few years since getting married and hopefully growing up and hopefully maturing," he concludes. "I want to be personal. I want to be vulnerable. I want people to believe and know that this music is authentic to me, and I mean the words I say."

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