Pat Green is back with new music, out now. The Texan just released his Miles and Miles of You album, marking his first new record since Home was released in 2015.

“It was the COVID record, and I think a lot of people have a COVID record, because there was just nothing to do for two years,” Green tells Everything Nash with a laugh. “I had to get my guys some work, first of all. The band wasn’t able to do anything. And so, I was just like, ‘Okay, let’s go rent a house in Austin that has a studio.’ And it just so happened that Dwight A. Baker, who’s a really brilliant, very well respected music maker in Austin, he has a house with a studio. And so we rented the place out.”

Even amid the pandemic, Green and his band and crew worked on what became Miles and Miles of You for three weeks. It was a bit more challenging because of the restrictions brought on by the pandemic, but in many ways, it was also one of the easiest records Green has ever made.

“We’d record throughout the day and then play songs at night, and write songs at night,” Green shares. “It was easy. It was super easy. I had quite a few of the songs, I want to say four or five songs before we got to the studio. But, the rest of it came during that time. I’m very pleased with how this thing turned out.”

When asked if Miles and Miles of You would have been made if the world hadn’t been shut down for two years, the 50-year-old admits he is uncertain.

“That’s hard for me to say,” Green concedes. “The previous album to this one, it was five years until that album. So, I don’t really think of it that way. I kind of just say, ‘Okay, when I’m ready to put out a record, here’s the material.’ Maybe COVID was a little bit of the linchpin or the straw that broke the camel’s back, but I don’t know.”

Miles and Miles of You includes a duet with Abby Anderson, on “All In This Together.”

“She’s a phenomenal talent,” Green boasts of Anderson. “Just a great young artist. I’m so proud to have her on my project. I was like, ‘Dwight, this song really needs a great, powerful — and powerful being the operative word there — female vocal on it. And he totally agreed. So we started thinking about who made our list. And then he circled her name, and I was like, ‘Okay.’ And so it was a phone call away. It was really quite easy.”

Green launched his career by releasing music on his own, before being signed to a record deal, first by Universal Records, then BNA, followed by one project with Sugar Hill Records, before returning to being an independent artist. It’s the ability to make his own choices that gives him the freedom to not churn out music as quickly as he once did, and it’s a freedom he finds exhilarating.

“The big record labels, they’re like, ‘You’re gonna put out a record every year,'” Green recalls. “And I just got really burned out on making a record every year. Now, it turned out great because we had a lot of hits during those years and enough to sustain two or three careers. But, from that point, it was like, whenever it happens, it happens. And I still write a lot. All the time. But, Guy Clark was the greatest writer that I ever experienced. And, I said, ‘When do you put out records, Guy?’ And he goes, ‘When I got 10 good ones.'”

Find Miles and Miles of You, as well as a list of Green’s upcoming shows, at PatGreen.com.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of HBPR / Jimmy Burch