Hunter Hayes Releases Debut Album

Hunter Hayes is 20 years old, an age at which most country stars are just getting started. And while it's true his self-titled album, out today (Oct. 11), marks his major-label debut, Hunter is actually a 15-year veteran of the music business. (Yeah, you read that right.)

Captured on video (and now viewed more than 11 million times on YouTube), 4-year-old Hunter shared a stage with Hank Williams Jr., singing 'Jambalaya' to a crowd of 200,000. At 6, he made his feature-film debut in 'The Apostle,' alongside Oscar winner Robert Duvall, who gave the young accordion player his first guitar.

But that was the '90s. Fast-forward to 2011, a year that's been pretty good for the teenager, too. He opened shows for Taylor Swift on her Speak Now world tour and has just kicked off his Most Wanted fall tour. And now his album, for which he wrote or co-wrote every song, is earning stellar reviews. Yet, not only did he have a hand in penning every track, he played every instrument on the 12-track collection. It's a habit he got into at an early age.

"It allows me to take a little more control over it and reinterpret the songs, tweak it, fix it," Hunter tells The Boot. "We had this great idea of, let's go into the studio and try it. We did. I was nervous, because working with [producer] Dann Huff, he's one of my heroes. I've done the process but not quite to that extent and going into the studio with him, he made it easy. We took our time and had fun with it. I had a bunch of fun with 30 instruments in the studio. There's 20 different versions of acoustic [guitars], four different mandolins, different tunings."

But if you plan to catch Hunter's high-energy live show, don't expect to see him taking that same multi-instrumental approach. "When I go to see a show, I'm going for the song and to see somebody do their thing," he says. "That's my time to lay back, relax, get on an acoustic or electric guitar and sing the songs. Live, it's about playing the songs, not having to play every instrument."

'Hunter Hayes' features the Top 30 hit, 'Storm Warning.' Watch the song's video below.