Granger Smith has made quite the name for himself in country music, both as a singer and as his comedic alter ego, Earl Dibbs, Jr. While he enjoys his career, and the experiences it affords his family, the Texas native hopes his children London and Lincoln don’t follow in his footsteps.

“They love to play little guitars and they love to sing, but I honestly, I hope that they don’t,” Granger said on the Bobby Bones Show, when asked if he hoped they followed in his footsteps. “I hope they just get a normal job, like be a veterinarian, or something that’s respectful. But musician, it’s a tough life with a lot of heartbreak, that I don’t know if I’d want to see my kids go through.”

Granger recently announced the first of a two-part album, Country Things, Vol. 1, would be released on September 25. Granger was already working on songs for a new record when Granger and his wife, Amber, tragically lost their son River in a drowning accident in their home.

“My life is just…different now. Or maybe a better way to put it is, I see life differently now,” Granger said of his new music. “This collection focuses on the things that money and politics and status can’t buy. The things that you can center on and I want to live my life for. The things you want to raise your kids with and find joy in. The country things.”

Granger and Amber have both been outspoken advocates for water safety, in the wake of River’s death.

“It’s not like the movies,” Granger Granger told People. “To comprehend that you could lose someone to drowning 20 feet from you doesn’t make any sense unless you know how that process works and that it’s so silent. There isn’t splashing or gurgling or kicking. There wasn’t even a splash going in.”

Order Country Things, Vol. 1 at GrangerSmith.com.