The 3rd, Mitchell Tenpenny’s third studio album, is an uncut look into his musical personality. Tapping into both his country and rock sides, Tenpenny blends styles and genres, collaborating with the artists he admires the most to tell unique stories. “Demon or Ghost”, a collaboration with Underoath, gives a mastered listen to “Y’allternative” – where country meets rock, just like the Nashville-born artist. The 3rd digs deep into personal journeys, but also gives us a rockin’ look into how it feels when life happens.

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“Demon or Ghost” is a unique collaboration with Underoath. How did this partnership come about? What was the experience of blending country and rock elements? 

Yeah, it’s a little underground thing happening with country rock and they call it the “Y’allternative”, which is great, and I come from that background too. I’m born and raised in Nashville, raised in the industry of country music, but I also love rock and roll. I’ve been in bands my whole life playing rock and roll as well, so it was a perfect blend. I’ve been a huge fan of Underoath since I was little, and I met Aaron, the lead singer and drummer in Nashville, actually writing songs together. He came to Nashville to write some country songs and we wrote a song that Cheat Codes put on a record. We became friends through that, which was awesome for me because I’m a huge fan first off, but, I asked him when we were making this record, “would you be down to sing on a song?” And he said, “why don’t we just do it under Oath?” I wasn’t going to ask, but I appreciated it, so I said let’s do it. So, Spencer flew in and we wrote the song together that day, and getting to do a song on Oath is special for me, especially because I’ve done what I grew up loving and listening to, and to write a song and hear the voice scream with Spencer, it’s a full circle moment for sure. 

You’ve collaborated with Underoath in writing “Demon or Ghost” with Spencer and Aaron. What was the most memorable moment? How did they shape the direction of the song? 

Yeah. I mean, it’s just what they do stylistically, Aaron’s voice – and Spencer’s got, in my opinion – the best scream in the game. Just getting to see what their process of writing is compared to how we do it in Nashville, it was a lot of fun and we were actually very organic and worked out well. It just kind of flowed easily. But the coolest part for me was shooting the music video, doing the green screen stuff, and then taking pictures together, like we were in a band together. I felt so cool, having Aaron and Spencer next to me, like I dreamt of that as a kid. I’d say that was probably the coolest moment, and having a video to see us in together with all this chaos going on around us, I mean, come on. That’s pretty cool to me. 

You’ve mentioned the theme of toxic relationships and seeing someone from your past as either a ghost or a demon. Why do you think this concept resonates with so many listeners? 

I’m fortunate, I think so many listeners have been through it. It’s part of dating, it’s part of growing up, it’s part of finding the right one. I mean, you have to have a journey and I think it’s just the story of a lot of lives, good or bad. I personally think it’s for the good. It’s truly how you find out what you really want and sometimes you feel like, are they haunting you? Are they doing this on purpose, is it just a mirage or is this someone actually trying to hurt you and trying to make sure you don’t stand a chance in the next, which I don’t get. I think when it doesn’t work out in the relationship, you move on and you wish the best for the others, hopefully they find the right one. I don’t know, I think a lot of people have been through that. So for me, this song resonates and that’s what we’re seeing from comments, that people deal with that. Especially, sometimes people are a part of your life for so long, it’s almost like being a ghost. Even if the feelings are gone, you see somebody walking on the street and you pass them and you think, I haven’t talked to you in years, but we were so close for so many. It’s a weird concept. I kind of wanted to write about that. I remember walking by an ex from high school that I haven’t seen in 15-20 years. We both kind of looked at each other and couldn’t really tell if it was the other, so much time had passed. That felt like seeing a ghost, I was spooked out by it and it’s kind of been in my head for a while. We really probably have nothing to say, but it’s just crazy that back in the day we used to know each other so well.

What was it like stepping out of your country music comfort zone to write this “Y’allternative”, rock song? Did you face any challenges blending the genres? 

No, it’s authentic for me. I used to be in bands, I was a screamer, a drummer, so this is something I do as well. I’ve written songs for Wage War, Devil’s Cut, I’ve been on State Champs Records, Bill Murray, I love their stuff. This is another part of me and what I do, so it wasn’t a challenge, it was more fun to go back to what I kind of started with, and write music for the other side of me that I love. There’s two halves, I have rock and country and blending them together is just natural.

Your upcoming album, The 3rd, has 20 tracks, includes collaborations with both Colbie Caillat and Underoath, how did you decide who to collaborate with on this album? 

They’re the polar opposites of artists. Colbie Caillat is one of my favourites as well, I love her voice. For me, when it comes to collaborations, I don’t try to chase whatever the biggest name is at the moment. I want to chase things that influenced me, the songs that I fell in love with and the artists I fell in love with. To me, that’s a full circle moment, because that’s what was inspiring me at the beginning. To get the opportunity to do a song with Underoath, and the way Colbie sings and her style of writing, to be at a point where I could collaborate with them means more to me than just chasing what the biggest thing is at the moment. We just did a Brooks & Dunn collaboration – those are people that influenced me when I was little and made me want to play music, those are priorities for me, if I’m ever able to get the opportunities. 

With tracks like “Demon or Ghost”, or “Guess We’ll Never Know”, it seems like your album has a huge array of emotions and genres that you range from. Can you share how it differs from your previous albums in terms of theme and sound? 

I think we went a little more all over the place on this record in a good way. The theme is authenticity for me. It’s telling stories that I believe in, that I want to sing and that I feel great singing every day, stories of my life. The storytelling, that’s what country is to me. For the production, I’m trying to blend what I love from R&B, rock, pop and country into my core and the way I write songs. I think there’s a little bit more of everything and all my influences combined on this record than my other two. The first one is way more country, more modern country. The second one adds some rock edge to it, it’s called This Is The Heavy for that reason, but then the third one kind of branches off into all the genres.

This Is The Heavy, your previous album, included platinum selling number one hit “Truth About You”. How do you approach creating a follow up record after such success? 

It’s the most nerve wracking, anxiety driven thing in the world, you try to just focus and forget about it and try to make the best music you can. Honestly, that’s what happens in the studio for me. I made a promise to myself that I was just going to make music that I love and enjoy and hopefully it would do its thing from there. When I’m in the studio and I’m having the time of my life, the most fun is creating music with amazing musicians. I tried to block out all the outside noise and make a record I truly loved. 

Could you tell me if there’s a specific track on The 3rd that holds a special place in your heart or one that you’re excited for your fans to hear? 

There’s a couple. “Set It in Stone”  for me is one of my favourites, it’s very personal. It’s how I got my name and how I want my name remembered. “The 3rd” is where my name James Mitchell Tenpenny the Third comes from, and then “Set It in Stone” is how I want it written on my headstone, I love how it goes through that. I also love the Colbie Caillat song, “Guess We’ll Never Know”, that one’s a special song. I wrote it with Teddy Swims, who’s an incredible artist, and we just love singing together, so every time we write songs, we always flip off the verses. And when I was in the studio recording, I just kept hearing Colbie’s voice in my head, so I reached out to her, and I was a little nervous to do that, but you never know what they’re gonna say. Getting to do that was magic for me, so that’s probably one of my favourites. 

You’ve mentioned that as you get older, you start to evaluate who matters most in your life. How would you say your personal growth has influenced your songwriting? 

I think it’s the influence, I think that’s what it is. It’s just going to naturally, organically happen because that’s what you’re living every day. Especially as a songwriter, I think it’s just from learning life lessons and hopefully maturing and figuring things out and failing as well. That’s part of growing up. That’s part of learning life lessons, we’re going to make mistakes and just learn from them, and then write about them. That’s the lows of being a songwriter, you have to be vulnerable. 

What’s something that you would tell yourself when you were starting in the music industry? Just a piece of advice. 

It’s probably a couple of things: be patient, build yourself an incredible team, which I feel like I have done, it’s just taken longer. Put your blinders on, stay focused and don’t listen to everybody that’s just hopping on board the train for the moment – who wants to go with you for the lifetime? I think the last thing for me personally would be, stay naive, stay a little bit ignorant to everything around you, to the numbers and to what it needs to look like, stay naive to where you don’t know what you’re truly doing and write music that way. When you’re trying to write music for a reason, it just waters it down. So stay naive, stay who you were when you got offered a record deal, when you got offered the opportunity to do this – that’s why you got offered that, because you didn’t know what you were doing. I would say, hey, man, better stay naive and quit focusing on the outside world of it. 

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