American Songwriter May/June Cover Story: Blake Shelton Beats Burn Out, Leans Into Songwriting Community to Collect Unique Lyrics, Melodies on ‘For Recreational Use Only’

Dressed in a light green button-down, glasses, and a black bicycle helmet with a strap securely stretched under his chin, Blake Shelton pedaled around Venice on his 48th birthday trip to Italy last year. The chart-smashing country star and former The Voice coach knows the world looked at the sneaky snap and laughed. The picture was horrifying to Shelton. 

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When he looks at the shot, all he sees is himself past the point of burnout. Shelton had been sitting at home watching television since he stepped back from The Voice in May of 2023. His wife, Gwen Stefani, decided it was time they got out of the house. Shelton had never been overseas, so Stefani booked the trip to Italy for herself, Shelton, and her three sons.

“It was incredible,” Shelton says of the trip. “But to get burned out in this business, I think you got to be super lucky and blessed. I have been, but at that point, it was like, ‘Golly, I just feel like I’d just been on this hamster wheel.’”

Almost one year later, Shelton is in Nashville to host the Opry 100: A Live Celebration on NBC. He comes by American Songwriter’s Music City office and strolls in the back door, cracking jokes. He laughs, remembering that he worked for the publication, delivering magazines during the early days of his career. He sips vodka and Sprite Zero as our editor slides an American Songwriter hoodie across the table and asks if he wants green or black. Shelton hugs familiar faces from his two-decade career, laughs with new fast friends, relaxes, and lets the f-bombs fly. He’s in the office to discuss his first new album in four years, For Recreational Use Only. However, to arrive at its May 9 release date, Shelton had to rebound from burnout and reconfigure his career. 

“For a few years there, I was having a pretty hot streak in country music, and I happened to also be on the No. 1 television show at the same time,” he says, leaning back in a chair in American Songwriter’s studio. “Trying to bounce back and be sure you don’t lose momentum in this lane, but you have to do this job. You signed up to do it. And eventually, it did do a number on me.”

Shelton had been burned out for years at the end of his run on The Voice, and that’s how he knew it was time to leave. 

“If I can’t even be happy being able to be lucky enough to do this, it is time for someone else to have this chair,” Shelton says. “I think Reba took my spot.”

Then Shelton settled in his comfortable chair—the one in his California home and another at his farm in Oklahoma. He sat there until he got an offer he couldn’t refuse—from Post Malone. In his mind, he’d been out of the loop for too long for Malone, or maybe anyone else, to care. He hadn’t released a new album in four years, which Shelton calls “the dumbest move you can make.”

“You can’t step back and then expect to step back in, and anybody would still be waiting on you,” he says. “I remember just being blown away that Post Malone even thought of me—’Really? Do you think he meant to call me?’”

Shelton and Malone recorded “Pour Me a Drink.” Malone released it as a single, and it became the crossover country artist’s second country chart-topper and Shelton’s 29th No. 1. As Shelton spent more time with Malone, he found the rapper’s fresh excitement for country music contagious. It made him reconsider his self-imposed hiatus. 

“I started thinking, ‘Man, what am I doing? Nobody gets to do this,’” Shelton said. “I need to make a record. That was fun. What I realized is that I’d had the break that I needed.”

The former The Voice coach was excited to go in and start recording music again. However, he felt that before he released new music, he had to make a change with his longtime record label, Warner Music Nashville. Peter Strickland, previously CMO at Warner Music Nashville, had moved to BMG. BMG was the first label to which Shelton’s team reached out. By the end of their first meeting, Shelton and label executives had already determined “Texas” would be his first single on the new label and were working to define the second. 

“I feel like there’s no time to waste in that moment,” Shelton says, explaining that because “Pour Me a Drink” was just a few weeks from peaking, he had to quickly have a song to follow it up. He had brought a few new songs he was excited about. But he knew that just because he loved them didn’t mean the label would love them, too. Luckily, they did. 

“With this amount of time between new music, it’s almost like a reintroduction,” Shelton says.

Frontline Recordings, North American President Jon Loba turned off the music when he heard “Texas” and said they were done. He wanted to release “Texas” immediately. 

“His vocal, once again, was so strong,” Loba says. “The production was a little bit different for him, and it was hooks all day long.”

“It was so refreshing for me to hear that kind of excitement again about something that I had done,” Shelton says. “I was like, ‘This is where I want to be.’”

The record deal was complete, and “Texas” was setting career records for Shelton on country radio within a couple of months. Written by Johnny Clawson, Kyle Sturrock, Josh Dorr, and Lalo Guzman, ”Texas” is poised to be Shelton’s 30th No. 1 song.

“He is an icon,” Loba says of Shelton. “He’s been such a consistent hitmaker. He has kept his work ethic all the way through. He’s absolutely an artist, but he’s a celebrity as well. We are a global company, and we really look at country from a global perspective. As big as anything is just his human connection. Everybody loves him.”

While Shelton hadn’t released a new album in four years, he had periodically been in the recording studio with longtime producer Scott Hendricks. They had a few tracks complete and had already poured through thousands of songs from Nashville’s newest and best writers, searching for a small handful for Shelton to record. The singer had hung on to a couple of them for six years, quipping he should have used them on his last album.

“Heaven Sweet Home,” Shelton’s collaboration with Craig Morgan, is one of the most tenured songs on the album. Written by Chris Tompkins, Sarah Buxton, and Jake Rose, “Heaven Sweet Home” is a harmony-rich mid-tempo song that embraces the peace of dying and going to Heaven. 

Someday I’ll be free of all the struggles and the troubles that burden me / Someday I’ll be good and gone / Washed in the blood, smooth and clean as a river stone.

Hendricks wanted a song for Shelton in line with Vince Gill’s “Go Rest High on That Mountain.” For three years, Hendricks told song pluggers and publishers in Nashville to send him songs that people could play at memorial services. He says he now has a file with a pile of titles in it. “Heaven Sweet Home” was their favorite. The song has a hymn quality, and Shelton originally recorded it alone. They added Morgan at the last minute. 

“I couldn’t be prouder of that record,” Hendricks says. “I listened to that record when we were done, which is very rare for me. When I’m done, I’m onto the next. But I wore that out.”

Shelton does write songs. But he prefers to lean heavily on the songwriting community to fill his albums. The singer explains what every recording artist knows to be true: you have your entire life to write your first album and possibly one year to write your second. However, Shelton only included four of his own songs in his first album. He didn’t write his breakthrough hit, “Austin.” That distinction belongs to David Kent and Kirsti Manna.

He only co-wrote one of the 12 tracks on his new album, For Recreational Use Only. He teamed with his previous The Voice team members, the Swon Brothers, to write the song. Beyond that, he relied on Music City’s songwriters.

“I’m a fan of songwriters, and there’s so many great songwriters in Nashville,” Shelton says. “If I look at my song next to some of these songs, I’m going, ‘Man, this is trash compared to what these writers come up with.’”

Shelton remains honored when writers pitch him their work. He knows they’re taking a chance, entrusting what might be the best thing they’ll ever create to someone else.

“That’s your baby, and you’re handing it to this idiot,” he says. “When they do it, it’s a big deal for me.”

As a songwriter, Hardy has been—and remains—a significant part of Shelton’s career. Hardy co-wrote “Strangers” and “Let Him in Anyway” on Shelton’s new album. But before that, “God’s Country,” a song Hardy wrote with Devin Dawson and Jordan Schmidt, was one of Shelton’s most significant hits. 

“Every time I see Hardy now, I’m like, ‘Man, listen, I just can’t thank you enough for taking a chance on, now, one of the old guys in country music,’” Shelton says, self-deprecatingly. “Thank you for letting me have a crack at some of these songs because without that, I would still be singing country music, but it’d be in a cover band somewhere back in Oklahoma.”

He also admits Hardy gives him credit for helping launch his career. Since then, Hardy has launched a successful crossover career and, with co-writes including “Wait in the Truck” and “Sand in My Boots,” he is one of the most successful singer/songwriters in country music. With that knowledge, Shelton considers himself even luckier. 

“It probably did help elevate Hardy into what he is now because each big moment like that that you have helped you step up to the next thing,” he says. “Now you have that platform and that thing to talk about on radio. It just kind of helps connect the dots.”

Hardy co-wrote “Let Him in Anyway” with Zach Abend, Kyle Clark, and Carson Wallace. The song profoundly explores loss and attempting to pray a loved one into Heaven.

Hey, God / I know you know what I’m ’bout to pray, God / I just had to suck it up and say goodbye to my best friend / And I don’t ever wanna never see him again / And I know the only way to get in is through you / And he wasn’t quite the Christian he was supposed to be / And Lord, it ain’t my place / But could you let him in any way?

Shelton loved it immediately because he’d never heard another song echo the sentiment. 

“Blake’s been more selective about songs with more meaning,” Hendricks says, calling American Songwriter from Shelton’s tour stop in Baltimore, Maryland. The pair had been in the studio that morning, and Hendricks flew with Shelton to see his Friends & Heroes 2025 Tour the night after Shelton hosted the Opry television special. “We’ve recorded hundreds and hundreds of songs at this point. He’s an amazing writer himself, but he relies on other professional songwriters because he’s so busy. It’s great for Nashville’s songwriting community.”

Hardy isn’t the only artist who wrote a song that made it onto Shelton’s album. Lady A’s Charles Kelley co-penned the Gwen Stefani duet “Hangin’ On” with Sam Ellis and Greylan James. Shelton almost lost the song to Jason Aldean. Aldean heard the song first and put it on hold. 

“I was like, ‘Why is this guy getting my songs?’” Shelton jokes. “And I was like, ‘I’m going to sing it with Gwen Stefani.’”

Kelley returned to Aldean to ensure he was serious about recording the up-tempo tune about struggling to heal from a past relationship. Because Aldean was recording after Shelton, he released it to Shelton. 

“I appreciate that, Jason,” Shelton says. “Thank you. Gwen wasn’t going to sing on it with you anyway.”

“Hangin’ On” is vocally challenging for the couple, but Shelton doesn’t think they’ve recorded a song that wasn’t. Everything they choose pushes them as singers. Because Kelley is an award-winning vocalist, he understands how to write songs with that edge. 

“It’s a challenge, but I think the song is really well written, and we love it,” he says. 

Shelton enjoys testing his vocals in the recording studio, but sometimes regrets it when on stage. “Stay Country or Die Trying,” the album’s opening track, written by Drew Parker, Graham Barham, Sam Ellis, and Beau Bailey, is another example. The Southern rock country anthem is a prideful, unapologetic list of what it means to grow up with the diehard backwoods mentality. 

“There’s a pride to being a hillbilly and not going to town for any damn thing,” Shelton says. “The song is a little bit of ‘God’s Country’ and a little bit of ‘Ol’ Red.’”

Shelton hopes the vast array of songs on For Recreational Use Only conveys that. At over two decades into his career, he’s still in search of the best, most unique songs he can get his hands on. 

“I’ve never been somebody who’s trying to make some kind of a statement with an album,” he says. “I’ve just always been someone who wants to collect great songs. I know it’s subject to opinion, but I look back at some of these songs that I’ve had and just go, ‘Man, I’m really, really proud.’”

Photos by Robby Klein