Jaida Dreyer Credits Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean With Helping Jumpstart Her Career

Jaida Dreyer's debut album, I Am Jaida Dreyer, was just released earlier this year, but she is hardly a novice to country music. The singer has already toured with several of country music's biggest stars, including Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean and Dierks Bentley, and she credits each of them with giving her the support she needed to get her career off the ground.

"All of those guys were really good to me, in the sense that they're all with their big buses, and I'm pulling up in the band van with my smelly boys," she tells The Boot with a laugh. "They were all there at some point. They were always standing on the side of the stage, especially with Luke. I can't remember a show with Luke where he wouldn't be standing by the side of the stage when I was done. I'd come off, and he'd give me a high five and be like, 'That was great!'

"They were very encouraging and supportive," she continues. "As a young female artist, I played a lot of shows with them before I signed my record deal. It was very encouraging, and I think you need that. You need reassurance and a pat on the back saying, 'You're doing a good job.'"

The songstress also had some star power in recording her new album, from Sugarland member Kristian Bush, who both co-wrote and sang on the track, "Boy Who Cried Love." "I was a huge Sugarland fan before I even moved to Nashville," Jaida admits. "[Album producer Byron Gallimore] has worked with them on their last few records. Byron's wife, Missi, had sent Kristian some of my demos. It was before we had even gone in and cut for the record. Kristian was like, 'I want to write with that girl.' So we did. We wrote a couple times in Nashville, and I ended up going down to Atlanta for a weekend. The song that's on my record is a song that came from that weekend."

Jaida says she knows she is fortunate to have worked with Byron Gallimore, whose lengthy list of credits includes Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Sugarland and Lee Ann Womack . "I've been writing songs for him for almost five years now," she explains. "It was a really cool process. He gave me enough rope to hang myself, if I wanted to, which I quickly realized is a luxury not a lot of new artists don't have. I'm very thankful for that, and I'm excited to have a full length record out. So many artists these days get a couple singles, and an EP if they're lucky, so the fact that I have a whole album that I can hold in my hands is something I'm really proud of."

I Am Jaida Dreyer is available now.