Tyler Hubbard's solo motivation remains 'Strong' on his new pop-ready country album
With the April 12 release of the his album "Strong," Tyler Hubbard has issued two solo albums and 31 tracks of material in 14 months.
Don't think of him still as just the north Georgia-born half of the 20-time country chart-topping and 40 million-plus single-selling act Florida Georgia Line, his dozen-year partnership with Brian Kelley. Enough of the aspiring, Belmont University-attending songwriter is left in Hubbard, now 37, to make an interviewer believe that he's still impassioned to be a solo star, for himself, by his own handiwork, in Music City.
He has dived back into the pocket as a hard-charging songwriter, to the point that he's disheveled and wearing work boots, cargo pants, a T-shirt and a baseball cap while seated in a Music Row office during his album's release week.
"Just like my fans, I'm pretty much always letting loose and having fun these days," Hubbard tells The Tennessean.
Like his album's title song, his resolve to succeed as a singer-songwriter and family man for the past eight years remains as strong as steel-toed work boots, sturdy oak trees and callused hands.
"I'm being fueled by confidence, gratitude, humility and comfort in what I offer (all facets of the country music industry) as a solo artist," he says. "Hitting my rhythm and stride finally allows me to adjust to my work-life balance as an artist, father of three and husband."
A songwriter's songwriter
Hubbard's workaholic sensibilities cause him to lack awareness of time as denoted by minutes, hours, days, months and years. He shrugs as if unimpressed when told that he's released two solo albums in 15 months.
Then, it's important to contextualize how nonplussed he seems when considering that he has been on somewhere in the range of 20 different concert tours and a part of 15 dozen released songs over the past decade.
His frenetic pace hasn't slowed. But he's also mindful of the focus required to ensure that his pace does not deter his artistic growth and the maintenance of his success.
"Not being a statistic that falls prey to the temptations of fame, money and the road requires me to think about what I want my legacy to be at this point. Did I take the proper steps to create a life I'm proud of, or did I let the music industry's stress consume my life?" he says.
"I really love writing songs and have known for so long how quickly the mainstream country fanbase tires of having the same old material," says Hubbard with a wise grin.
He then dives into a longer explanation regarding why he's created so many songs — especially of late — in his career.
"I'm building a solo catalog and know that for that to happen, my fans need to be engaged with learning as much about me as possible on and off the stage and on social media," he says. "With so many quality collaborators around me, too, we're not sacrificing the quality of the art for the sake of having content, either."
No fewer than 30 songwriters have worked with him on tracks in the past three years. There's an untold litany of other songs that he's worked on as well that may never see the light of day.
"Collaborators and friends are helping me tell the stories that I want my fans to hear and know when they see me play live or they hear my songs on the radio," says Hubbard.
Diverse interests expand upon an established country legacy
His career success has allowed him to write as much while on the road with acts such as Keith Urban and Old Dominion as he has in Nashville songwriting rooms, and the benefits are evident in his new material.
Growth from songs like the chart-topping traditional country-pop ballad "5 Foot 9" and the danceable, rock-ready "Dancin' in the Country" appears in songs like "Back Then Right Now," the current radio single from "Strong." Though similar in construction and melody to "5 Foot 9," it moves about 20 beats per minute faster.
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Similar but different as well, "Vegas," the follow up to "Back Then Right Now," is more of a trap-driven ballad than anything else.
"I'm also working with the type of live band that's having as many conversations about country, pop and rock standards but will have these multi-dimensional conversations about Juvenile's New Orleans rap classics or George Strait's greatest hits," Hubbard continues, regarding the breadth of influences contained on his latest album.
Those creators have inspired Hubbard to double down on an arena rock and '80s funk-driven dance-pop sound under country lyrics that delivers best not on radio or record but in 60-to-90-minute concerts.
Unifying Hubbard's first and second solo releases are more personal and vulnerable songs like hometown anthem "Take Me Back" (he notes it serves as an extension of his 2023 album track "Small Town Me") and quite literally "'73 Beetle," a nostalgia-driven and solo-written song about a car that Hubbard and his father repaired when Hubbard was a teenager. In Hubbard's mind, it sits alongside his 2023 album's track "Miss My Daddy" and showcases how much deeper he's willing to dive into himself on his sophomore follow-up.
'As honest as I've ever been as a songwriter'
"These songs are, word-for-word, as honest as I've ever been as a songwriter," says Hubbard.
Realize, again, that he's released somewhere in the neighborhood of an album a year of material for 12 consecutive years.
"When your career is touring driven, there's nothing quite like writing on the tour bus immediately after hearing what responds best with your fanbase," says Hubbard.
Ask him to dive deeper into what he's most excited about in the next chapter of his career, and his answer is as intensely focused but broadly intriguing as his past two albums' worth of material.
"Nothing slow, nothing sad," he says. "It's great — and very popular right now — but I'm into having the fun and success I'm having, plus music that represents anything and everything else that's the opposite of that."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Singer-songwriter Tyler Hubbard releases 'Strong,' his 2nd solo album
