Next Monday (Dec. 13), Blake Shelton’s next album Fully Loaded: God’s Country will be released. And I’m sure the liner notes will be full of all kinds of credits for his songwriters, producers, label bosses and more. But in a new story in the Tennessean, Shelton is giving a lot of credit to the man upstairs.
“I believe in God now more than I ever have in my life,” Shelton said. “The biggest part of that is just how (Gwen Stefani) came into my life and now our relationship. It’s just too weird. If you take God out of it, it doesn’t make sense. If you put God into it, everything that’s happened with us makes sense.” Shelton and Stefani have been dating since 2015.
The title track from the album is one that Shelton admits came to him when he was on the verge of feeling sorry for himself because his success hadn’t come with any kind of guarantee. “How am I going to feel when this goes away? I was kind of having that pity party,” he recalled thinking.
But when “God’s Country” came along, Shelton realized that it — either the Southern rock sound or the God-is-good lyrics — was just what he needed, and just what his fans wanted.
“There is still the old-school segment of country music fans out there that are starved for that,” he said. “But even more than that is this new young generation of country music fans who know ‘Country Boy Can Survive,’ and they want their generation’s version of that song.
“That really excited me to know that that part of country music is alive and well out there, it just hasn’t been fed.”