It seems hard to believe that Filmore is really just now releasing his debut album, but what an album it is. The 18-track project comes on the heels of a lot of success already for the singer, including the 2018 release of “Slower,” which earned him more than 26 million streams, and ultimately got him a deal with Curb Records.

Filmore co-wrote all of the songs on State I’m In, penning them alongside some of Nashville’s biggest songwriters, including Jesse Frasure, Justin Ebach, Bob DiPiero, Jordan Schmidt and more.

“A lot of these people I have been friends with for years, and we’ve been working on stuff for years,” Filmore told Everything Nash. “I didn’t even sign a publishing deal until March of this year, so it wasn’t like I had these like big writers. It was just, I put music out that reacted, and they liked that music. I reached out, and then I became friends with these big writers. It helped hone my craft as well.”

Filmore’s next single is “Nothing’s Better,” which was inspired by an ex-girlfriend, but the Missouri native says it can apply to anyone, or anything.

“‘Nothing’s Better’ is like a breakup song with anything negative in your life,” Filmore explained. “So that could be a boss, a job. It could be a spouse, it could be a girlfriend, it can be a best friend that’s done you wrong. That’s the whole premise behind it. For me, it was an ex that I clearly don’t like, but the story I tried to tell everyone when I wrote it, and the way that I wrote it was, maybe it is my ex for this story, but it’s also a lot of other things in life that I’ve kind of wrapped into there. It was like, ‘No, when you get rid of this, you actually find happiness.’ It’s not supposed to be bashing that person; it’s more or less a freedom of negative energy.

“I’m excited for it to finally come out,” he continued. “I wrote it three years ago, so I’ve been waiting for the right moment. You always gotta wait for the right moment for these songs to be put out in the world, because they’re your babies and you love them. So you just want to make sure they have the best chance possible. And it just so happens that this is the time for ‘Nothing’s Better.'”

“Nothing’s Better” might have been written about an ex-girlfriend, but he’s happily in love now, and getting married later this year.

“I’m good now, but that’s the crazy part about this album,” Filmore reflected. “When certain songs come out, I don’t think people realize, especially fans sometimes — here’s me announcing that I’m engaged, but then this song comes out and it’s like, ‘Hold on. Did they break up?’ Some people just don’t realize that  these songs have been written for years, and they’re just now coming out. I’ll continue to have songs that I’ve written years ago that come out later, which tell those kind of stories because they’re all real things and you can’t just have a whole album of love songs.”

Filmore’s fiancée isn’t in the music business — she’s actually in the medical field — but she couldn’t be more proud of her future husband.

“She’s beyond supportive,” Filmore boasted. “I don’t think I would be with anyone that’s not supportive of  what I do and how hard I work, and the amount of hours that it takes every single day. So she kind of just always lets me do my thing, and then we come together at the end of it. We’re both very independent and able to just live our lives, but also support each other. It’s probably the most amazing thing ever. It’s great for my lifestyle and also for hers.”

State I’m In is available at FilmoreMusic.com.