Will Hoge has been through the wringer. "Took a whole lot of miles to know what I know now," he sings on "Growing Up Around Here," the opening track off of his tenth studio album, "Small Town Dreams." It's been a whole lot of miles, indeed: miles on the road, driving the bus himself from venue to venue since the 1990s; miles to and from Nashville writing rooms, where he's spent countless hours penning songs. This is the album that follows every twist and turn in Will's American journey—a journey that's positioned him as one of our keenest, most honest modern storytellers, telling both his own tale and ours. An extremely prolific songwriter with ten albums under his belt and countless songs written for others (including a Grammy nomination for Eli Young Band's number-one hit, "Even If Breaks Your Heart," co-written with Paslay), Will sees this next phase of his journey as an opportunity to explore even deeper into both his country and rock & roll roots. Never fitting particularly neatly into a genre box, he's always just made the music that moved him—but it's safe to say that he feels more kinship with the country community than ever, particularly as a storyteller.