Joe Nichols photo by Jon Smith, courtesy of Universal Records South.

It’s a good time to be Joe Nichols. Baseball season is underway, and he’s at the top of the country singles charts. Both of them.

Joe’s current release, “Gimmie That Girl,” was hailed as the nation’s No. 1 country song by both Billboard and Mediabase this week, marking the first time he’s hit the top spot since “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” did it in 2005.

Joe got the news while he was inspecting his brand new tour bus on Monday, so it gave him a sense that he could actually afford the new purchase. As he tours the highways in that vehicle, Joe’s travelling down a creative road that was paved by some of his heroes, including Merle Haggard and Keith Whitley. And that’s a reason why his current album, Old Things New, is perfectly titled. He brings new life to those old sounds, though Joe’s haunted a bit by the power of those singers’ influence when he hears his own vocals.

“It’s hard to listen to myself and say, ‘Yeah, I owned that, and that’s me,’” Joe admits. “It’s really hard, ‘cause when I hear myself, I say, ‘Did I sing that like Merle Haggard? Did I sing that the way I would do it imitating him? Not just like he would do it, but did I do that trying to imitate him? Or did I do that trying to imitate Keith Whitley?’ Or just a random thought, ‘Is that really me? Is that really me?’”

Ultimately, when all the questions have been asked, Joe can take some satisfaction that he’s arrived at a place where he’s finding new shades of texture in a voice that was practically built to sing country music.

“There’s stuff [on this album] that doesn’t sound like any of the three of us — there’s stuff that doesn’t sound like me, doesn’t sound like Keith, and doesn’t like Merle,” Joe observes. “But it still comes out of me naturally. And there’s a lot of moments like that where I go, ‘Wow, that’s pretty cool. I didn’t know I could do that. That’s really a neat song.’ I don’t know. It’s really strange with this album. It’s unlike anything I’ve been through — in large part because I’m in a different place mentally.”

That “different place” is a reference to the album’s status as Joe’s first since going through rehab for alcohol use. That makes the No. 1 with “Gimmie That Girl” all the more special, because it’s his first chart-topping title since changing his life. He hopes there are more to follow.  

Watch the video for “Gimmie That Girl” online now »

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Joe Nichols photo by Jon Smith, courtesy of Universal Records South.

Joe Nichols made a nice move this week to launch his current single, “Gimmie That Girl,” into the Top 15 on the Country Aircheck Mediabase chart. It’s the first time he’s cracked that level on the chart in more than three years, and part of the reason is likely because he connects on a personal level to the upbeat sentiment of the song.

Watch Joe’s video for “Gimmie That Girl” »

When Joe married Heather Singleton in the fall of 2007, it had a huge, calming effect on his life. They’d actually known each other as friends for more than a decade, and she’d been a rock of support for him even when everything else was kind of wacky.

“I’ve been in relationships and she’s been in relationships before, throughout the course of this time,” he says. “But we’ve always been able to talk, we’ve always been able to share, we’ve always been like the best of friends. I just got the opportunity to marry her, my best friend, which some people cannot say, so I’m a very fortunate guy.”

Joe went into rehab shortly after their wedding, and his current album, Old Things New, is the first he’s recorded since then. It was a different process for him, particularly because his mind was working differently than it had when he drank. Heather was invariably able to help him find his way through what was essentially a new experience.

“She’s a great person to bounce things off of,” Joe reasons. “She doesn’t pull a lot of punches, she doesn’t lie. She makes me be a better person, makes me get a real good grasp of who I am, who I can be, when I’m bein’ a jerk and when I’m not, what parts of me need to grow, what parts of me need to ask for forgiveness, what parts of me need to feel proud.”

“Gimmie That Girl” is doing nicely while another part of Joe’s career has been delayed. He and Lorrie Morgan are slated to appear in the Broadway production of Pure Country, which was tabbed at one time to debut at the start of the year. It’s currently projected to hit the Great White Way in the fall.

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Joe Nichols recently visited troops on US military bases in Kuwait and Iraq. His trip was filmed for the GAC special, Joe Nichols: My Military Diary, premiering Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009 at 10 p.m. Eastern.

This summer, Joe Nichols took his first trip to the Middle East to perform for American troops serving in the nation’s two wars, and the journey is captured on a GAC special, Joe Nichols: My Military Diary.

It’s a visit he’d thought about for some time. Joe has an affinity for the work U.S. soldiers do, and he’s convinced that had things gone in a different way earlier in his life, he might well have ended up an enlisted man.

“I always felt like that was the most honorable job there is,” Joe notes. “I don’t think it pays tremendously. I mean, you have to seriously love somethin’ bigger than yourself to do that job. Any time that happens, any time people have that kind of heart, to sacrifice for somethin’ bigger than yourself, it just grabs me.”

The most obvious sacrifices made in war surround the critical danger that a soldier faces every day, but there’s another toll that’s taken, too. Servicemen and women spend months away from their homes and their families, and that makes for plenty of loneliness and uncertainty. That sacrifice is one of the things that impresses Joe most.

“I don’t think people are as worried about gettin’ shot at as they are just losing control upstairs of their purpose in life,” he says. “In the part of the world that I visited in Iraq, they’re isolated. A lot of ‘em have gone through divorces because they’re over there so long, which baffles me that the situation must call for a divorce. When you divorce somebody that’s 7,000 miles away doin’ a very, very difficult job — that you’ll leave them at their most vulnerable moment, I mean it just baffles me [how difficult] the situation might be.”

Joe Nichols: My Military Diary debuts at 10 p.m. ET Sunday on GAC. His latest album, Old Things New, was released last week. And next year he’ll have the lead role in a Broadway remake of the George Strait picture Pure Country.

Click here to watch Joe’s video for “An Old Friend of Mine.”

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Joe Nichols photo by Jon Smith, courtesy of Universal Records South.

Joe Nichols released his latest album, Old Things New, this week, and one of the things that’s new about it is the lack of a Joe Nichols songwriter credit.

It’s the first time he’s not put one of his own songs on one of his releases, and there’s a good reason for that: He’s a huge believer in good material, and he simply didn’t feel the titles he could have brought to the CD were better than the ones he picked up from other writers.

“I think an album, a career, a long-term career is made on great songs, and whether or not I wrote those songs is moot,” he explains. “Great songs are great songs no matter who wrote ‘em. If I wanted to record an album with three singles and songs four through 10 [are] filler — but I wrote it, so I’ll be makin’ some bank off the other three songs that are hits — I think that’s bullcrap… I think people that buy those [kinds of] albums, they get turned off by that, and they go, ‘I don’t necessaarily trust that this guy’s gonna do a good album. The last album had two good songs on it. That’s it. The rest of ‘em he wrote, and they were crap.’”

For clarity’s sake, Joe isn’t knocking every artist that writes most of his or her recorded material. He’s a fan of several acts who double as songwriters.

“I think it says wonders about people that can write an entire album, and put out an entire album of great songs,” he notes. “I mean, the Brad Paisleys — Alan Jackson especially, even Taylor Swift — those people can really pen great stuff. Right now, the place that I’m at, I’m not one of those guys, so I’m not gonna sacrifice what I think is great for a long-term career to put a little money in my pocket. I don’t wanna do that. I’d rather not have anything [I wrote] on the album and have 10 great songs on the album that can’t be denied. That way I can build trust with the country record buyer out there.”

Joe plays for ticket buyers this weekend in Hammond, La., and Pensacola, Fla. Beginning next year, he’ll be selling tickets on Broadway as he takes George Strait’s role in the theatrical version of Pure Country. Also featured in the cast will be fellow country singer Lorrie Morgan.

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Joe Nichols photo by Jon Smith, courtesy of Universal Records South.

Joe Nichols came to prominence in 2002 after signing with Universal South Records in Nashville, the city he called home for more than a decade.

But that changed after he married Heather Singleton in 2007. Heather is originally from Texas, and he relocated to the Dallas area, which guarantees she can feel at home even when he’s out touring.

“I think it was fair to her first of all, to be around her family, especially if I’m not gonna be around all the time,” Joe says, explaining the move. “Secondly, I just like the pace of Texas. Not that I dislike Nashville. I just like bein’ able to go home when I’m home. When I’m done with work, I know I don’t have to turn around and come right back and do something.”

Joe has plenty of work-related issues on his plate these days. His latest album, Old Things New, comes out on Tuesday. It includes his recent hit “Believers” and his current single, “Gimmie That Girl.”

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Joe Nichols photo by Jon Smith, courtesy of Universal Records South.

Joe Nichols has titled his next album Old Things New, and it’s an appropriate name on several levels. For one, it stylistically balances old-school country with the genre’s current tone. For another, it’s the first time he recorded a CD since he underwent alcohol rehab.

Joe approached his music with a clearer mind than ever before. But that meant that when doubts crept into his mind, he couldn’t use liquor to numb his fears. As a result, it took 11 months to make the album.

“Everything was a sober thought for this album — very clear, very difficult, very difficult,” he told the national radio show GAC Nights: Live From Nashville. “A lot of emotions, a lot of questions. At one point in the middle of this album, I was like, ‘Man, can I even sing? I don’t think I can sing anymore. I don’t even think I’m good enough to do this album. This is really bothering me.’ At one point, I was like, ‘Man, I really don’t think I’ve got it anymore at all’ — wondered if I ever did have it or if it was just booze talkin’ to me all the time. But that’s some of the questions that I asked myself through the making of this. That’s part of being clear-thinking. You have to ask tough questions.”

Joe leaned on his wife, Heather, for support and reassurance, and he ultimately came to realize that part of being an artist is feeling the emotions in the material and living with the discomfort they create. Old Things New has some gospel influences, some Merle Haggard threads and a couple of songs that reference his own battle. And it’s the best album he’s yet recorded.

“It’s a special album for a lot more than just the music,” Joe said. “It’s a special album ‘cause this is like a triumph on my part, and my wife’s part. [It’s a] triumph on everybody’s part that we pulled this out the right way.”

Old Things New will be released Oct. 27.

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