Ira Dean is back with I Got Roads, a new solo album, out now. The 14-track record includes collaborations with Gary Allan, Gretchen Wilson, Ronnie Dunn, Vince Gill, John Osborne, Uncle Kracker and more, becoming the most personal and meaningful record Dean has ever released.

“I got approached by Noah Gordon, who I’ve known forever,” Dean recalls to Everything Nash. “I just got done producing Aaron Lewis’ second album. I did Frayed at Both Ends and I did The Hill. He called me and said, ‘When are you going to do a record on you?'”

It was Lewis who convinced Dean that it was time for him to make his own mark in music, which he did with I Got Roads.

“I wanted every song to be as real as possible, and a chapter of my life,” Dean shares. “Good, bad, fun, not fun, whatever, I wanted to show all the scars and make people tap their toes at the same time. Every track is a chapter of my life.”

Dean could have easily just put out a project on his own. But the notoriously hard worker determined that if he was going to put out a record, it was going to be the best record he ever made.

“Any time I do anything now, I approach it like this could be my last hurrah,” explains the singer. “In the music business, you don’t retire from the music business. The music business retires you. Sometimes you don’t know you’re retired. They gave me the opportunity to do an album, and the concept of this album, I wanted to work with everybody who influenced me musically along this musical journey I had when I first moved to town as a young puppy. Anybody that I always wanted to record with.”

For Dean, having both Gill and Dunn on I Got Roads is more than a dream come true, especially since Dean has a long history of idolizing both singers.

“Vince Gill changed the path of my life musically,” Dean reveals. “I remember the first time I heard him play was off of a VHS tape, before I moved to town. It was a VHS tape of him singing on Austin City Limits. He was singing Oklahoma Borderline,’ and I was like, ‘One day I’m going to get a hold of that guy’ … Ronnie Dunn, the first time I heard Brooks & Dunn was the year I moved to town. I was driving my little Chevette with no floorboard and no heat down Gallatin Road.  I heard ‘Brand New Man,’ and I was like, ‘Oh my God, who’s that singing?’ I wanted to do an album with everybody that either musically changed my trajectory, or that were my friends that I never recorded with.”

Dean hand-picked all of the artists on I Got Roads, including Allan, whose friendship with Dean goes back to Dean’s days with Trick Pony.

“Making this album, there are so many great memories,” Dean says. “And so many check off the bucket list [names] … This album, it’s incredible for me.”

Dean is in many ways marking a new chapter with I Got Roads, after decades of being part of country music.

“With this album, I would like to introduce myself to everybody, because everybody knows me as the songwriter or from Trick Pony, the bass player,” Dean says. “I wrote a lot of songs with Trick Pony. I wrote a lot of songs for everybody else, but this is the first time I’ve written songs for me, for my project. I want somebody to put my album on and let it go from start to finish like a train ride, and not jump off. I think once they do that, they’ll understand who I am, and what I got to say. This is basically just an introduction to the world, saying, ‘You know me, but you haven’t known me. This is me.'”

Download or stream I Got Roads here. Find all of Dean’s music and upcoming shows at IraDeanMusic.com.

Photo Credit: David McClister