How did the collaborations with Sara Bareilles and LeAnn Rimes come about?
I’m friends with both of those girls. Sara and I had done some touring together in the past, and LeAnn and I had done some writing together for her previous record. So whenever these songs came up, and the opportunity was there, somebody mentioned, “Why don’t you get LeAnn on this track?” I called her up, and she jumped at the chance. It was the same way with Sara. I enjoy writing and singing with women. I think female singers have a way of saying things that guys would never think of. I do enjoy working with women, especially singers as great as these girls are. “Going Home” is a great closer. “Going Home” is a song that I wrote about seven years ago with a guy named Jake Joyce from Nashville. It’s a song I’d tried to record on several records over the years, and it just never worked out. We couldn’t get the sonics altogether. Finally on the project, we just went back to basics and didn’t try to do anything extra on the tracks. We looked through the demo and just made it happen. It ca
