Shooter Jennings Releasing New Album, ‘Family Man,’ in March

Shooter Jennings' new album is being called more personal and introspective than anything he's done before -- and the title pretty much confirms that. 'Family Man,' the singer-songwriter's fifth studio release will be available March 13, with material that focuses on his home life with his fiancée actress Drea de Matteo and the couple's two young children. The album also explores the temptations of life on the road, his Southern heritage as the son of Nashville rebel Waylon Jennings and his unique standing among today's country musicians. 'Family Man' will be Shooter's debut release for the Entertainment One Nashville (eOne) label.

"This album was really the first time that I took the creative process entirely in my own hands," says Shooter. "I had formed a new band, the Triple Crown, after reuniting with an old friend Erik Deutsch, who plays keys in the band, and went into the studio, producing the album myself. We spent a month in the Magic Shop in Soho [in New York City] and came out with what I think is my most country record to date. I'm really proud of this record and the songs on it, as this was the first time that I wrote the entire record on an acoustic [guitar], made demos and treated the songs as a blueprint for the Triple Crown to interpret."

Shooter reveals that the album's first single, 'The Deed and the Dollar,' recently released on iTunes, is one he considers to be "the perfect love song." In other autobiographical tracks on the disc, he addresses critics ('The Family Tree'), pays homage to his roots on the hard-driving 'Southern Family Anthem,' or gets surprisingly personal with 'Daddy's Hands,' inspired by an illness his family experienced early last year.

"Drea's dad had a stroke right after Christmas," says the singer. "It was really tough. We all were in the hospital from right after Christmas until late January and it was insanely hard on Drea to watch her dad in this debilitated state. But it had a double-edge cut to me as it reminded me of all the years I spent in the hospital with my own dad. I'd never been able to visit that emotion until I went through it through Drea's eyes. So this song is kind of a culmination of both of those experiences for me."

'Family Man,' the follow-up to 2010's 'Black Ribbons,' will be available beginning March 13. Meanwhile, the Waylon tribute album, 'The Music Inside, Vol. 2,' is slated for release on Feb. 7.