Zac Brown Band, ‘Uncaged’ Album Fuses Styles, Defies Convention

In spite of their unconventional approach to music, the Zac Brown Band has become one of country music's most successful groups of the past several years. Out today (July 10), is Uncaged, the brand-new album from the 2010 Grammy winners for Best New Artist. The group's new album is a bold mixture of country, rock, bluegrass, R&B, reggae and soul, but for the Georgia-based band, the eclectic blend is a natural extension of their approach to playing music. (Check out this week's full listening party for Uncaged here!)

"We play a lot of different styles of music fused together," Zac Brown tells The Boot. "I really think we're a vocal band and then the kind of music we decide to put around it is whatever we want it to be for that song. Each song has its own life. Because our voices are there and the harmony is there, our voices are the band and we accompany it differently with different kinds of music."

One thing Zac and company won't do is play by the rules, and that's especially true when it comes to the tunes they decide to record.

"We're not just going to take some songs from a focus group in Nashville," says Zac, "where people are sitting around in a circle having appointments trying to write catchy songs so they can sell them to a band like us. You can tell all our songs come from us and from our artists, the people we write with and travel with. You can hear us in them and you can hear the chemistry in our band because we live together as a band. I don't think a lot of bands and artists work as hard as we do on the creation, on the writing, the arrangements and the recording in our format."

In addition to promoting the new album, the Zac Brown Band is on the road with shows this coming weekend in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Keep track of their tour schedule here.

Watch the Story Behind Zac Brown Band's 'The Wind'