Rodney Atkins “can’t believe it’s seven years,” since his last album. “Time flies, for sure.”

Years in the making, the country star delivered his newest studio project, True South, on Friday (May 29). True South reflects the Tennessee-born artist’s relatable, long-held values — “friends, family, and the Good Lord” — with his signature, traditional country sound. The album includes, among other highlights, a meaningful duet with wife and songwriter Rose Falcon, and a full circle duet with son Elijah Atkins.

“Finally getting to this moment is very, very cool to finally have that project that I worked on for so long,” Atkins said in a recent interview with iHeartCountry. “This album, this really seems like we're all kind of chasing stuff these days. I find myself — I don't know what we're chasing, but whether it's success, approval, money, whatever it might be. And this album is just kind of getting back to the things that really matter. For me, it's just God, family, my kids, real life, the small town we live in. And so, I was kind of on a mission to just sing about friends, family, and the Good Lord for this whole album. So, it's crazy. Seven years is a long time [since 2019’s Caught Up In The Country]. I've lived a lot in that time.”

Atkins said the album’s title track and opening track “is about finding your way back to yourself as we're chasing those things. It seems like stuff just pulls us in so many directions with social media and the world we're living in. And ‘Truth South’ is not necessarily about a geographical location. It's just about where you come from, what makes you who you are and getting back to those things that matter. And that’s, like I said, your friends and your family.”

“Making this record has been a long road,” he added, in part, in a caption on Instagram on Friday morning. “Some of these songs have been with me for years, and some found their way onto the album at just the right time. Every one of them tells a piece of my story, where I've been, what I've learned, what I believe, and the people who've helped shape me along the way.⁣⁣⁣ …Country music may start with three chords and the truth, but it takes a whole lot of good people to bring it to life.⁣⁣⁣”

“True South” (Rodney Atkins, Rose Falcon, Blake Redferrin, Jake Saghi)
“Helluvit” (Rodney Atkins, Rose Falcon, Daniel Ethridge, Seth Mosley)
“Toys In The Dirt” (Thomas Archer, Lalo Guzman, Michael Taylor)
“Marry Me Again (MMA)” (Rodney Atkins, Russell Sutton, Jaxson Free, Jim McCormick, Adam Craig)
“Small Town After All” (Richard Sherman, Robert Sherman, Ben Hayslip, Chase McGill, Ben Burgess)
“Hole In One” (Jordan Schmidt, Devin Dawson, Zachary Kale)
“The Real Thing” (Rodney Atkins, Nicole Witt)
“All Y’all” (Rodney Atkins, Rose Falcon, Seth Mosley, Smith Ahnquist)
“The Years Are Short” (Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)
“Silver Bullets” (Jake Owen, Bobby Pinson, Josh Thompson, Jimmy Robbins)
“Believe Me (with Rose Falcon)” (Rose Falcon, Gabe Dixon, Michael Whitworth)
“Watching You 2.0 (with Elijah Atkins)” (Rodney Atkins, Steven Dean, Brian White)

Atkins, who made his debut in the late ‘90s, said he’s always been drawn to songs that embrace community, “and it’s cool,” to hear how those songs have resonated with others over the years. One of his hits that has stood “the test of time” is “Watching You,” a heartfelt single that Atkins released in 2006, capturing the close bond between a father and his young son. About two decades later, Atkins released a duet version with son Elijah, now 24. The country star credits his wife with the idea to sing the duet on TikTok, and when the clip went viral with millions of views, she persuaded the father-son duo to release it. Now, Atkins said he likes it “better than the original version.” He and Elijah have since performed it live at major venues in Nashville, Tennessee, including the Ryman Auditorium and Nissan Stadium.

“One of the coolest things is if I'm going to play a show and you see a young man and he's out there in the audience and I'm singing ‘Watching You’ when he picks his kid up, puts him on his shoulders like this is our jam,” Atkins said. “And then when I meet them after the show, they're saying, ‘“Watching You” was me and my old man’s song. That was me and my dad. That was our jam. And now it's me and my kid’s song.’ To last that long, I mean, it's crazy I wrote ‘Watching You’ 20 years ago and that people are kind of handing it down. That's the coolest thing ever….‘Watching You’ is just, it's amazing that it stands the test of time. I love that people share it with each other.”

Atkins also spotlighted “Believe Me” on his new album. He admitted that he “used to be bad about getting in my head and second guessing myself…growing up as an adopted kid, you think you're not worthy of love and crazy stuff like that. And years ago, I just said, ‘I'm just going to believe her. I'm going to believe what she thinks of me if she thinks I can be great. That's the better path.’” A publisher pitched Atkins “Believe Me,” and the singer-songwriter immediately thought of his and his wife’s story together. “And then I came home, it was a couple weeks after that and I told her, I found another song I want to record. And she said, ‘What is it?’ And I told her, she said, ‘I wrote that.’ And I had no idea that she even wrote the song,” Atkins shared with iHeartCountry. Falcon wrote “Believe Me” with Gabe Dixon and Michael Whitworth. Atkins said the meant-to-be song selection “was pretty cool.”

Atkins is “getting geared up,” for more live shows this year, blending beloved hits from previous albums with his newest music. “It's fun when you got new songs to play out there mixed with the hits and these new tunes. It's a blast.” Find True South on iHeartRadio here.

Corey Calhoun