Frankie Ballard is working on a new set of tunes, but the country singer says that he won't be recording it in Nashville. The album, which will be the follow-up to his 2014 Sunshine & Whiskey project, is being recorded at an undisclosed location outside of Music City.

"We're going off-campus," Ballard reveals to Rolling Stone Country, to a studio farther south, for 10 straight days. "This follow-up to Sunshine & Whiskey is very important to my career, so at a time like this, to do something weird is risky."

Ballard and his band will use the week-plus retreat to write and record the project, and while the singer knows that it's a gamble, he is more than up for the challenge.

"It makes me feel alive," he says. "We're going to go in with nothing, and we're going to come out with an album. And that's the way all my favorite albums were made. You slept at the studio -- we're going to do that. If we feel like putting down some guitars at two in the morning, we will."

The title track of Ballard's latest album was certified gold, for sales in excess of 500,000 units, in December. That success has only fueled his determination to work harder than ever before.

“This is what I’ve always dreamed of,” Ballard says. “I just want to make the best music I can make, and I hope that country music fans love it as much as I do. Every guitar player, musician, singer, songwriter that makes music doesn’t get to experience that because not everybody’s music has mass appeal. That’s a blessing to me, that the music I love and the music I make matters to people.”

The Michigan native is undoubtedly learning plenty about taking chances with his music while serving as the opening act for Florida Georgia Line on their 2015 Anything Goes Tour. A list of all of Ballard's upcoming shows is available on his website.

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