Jake Owen talks about new single 'Real Life'

Jake Owen didn't write his new single, Real Life, but it says just what he wanted it to say. And it should have: He inspired it.

Producers Shane McAnally and Ross Cooperman wrote the song along with Ashley Gorley and Josh Osborne, after having a conversation with the singer of Beachin' and Barefoot Blue Jean Night about the direction he wanted his new album to take.

As Owen, 33, reflected on recent events of his life — his marriage and the birth of his daughter, his father's successful battle with cancer — he told the producers, "I feel I've been so blessed to live this life, I want to talk about happiness and love. I want to talk about real-life situations."

About two weeks later, McAnally and Copperman brought him Real Life.

"It was spot on, exactly what we had talked about that day," Owen says. "The way we all grew up, the things that mean the most to us, the things that we brush off and forget about until we bring ourselves back to it. I wish I had written the song. At the same time, I feel like I was a major part of creating it."

With its half-spoken, half-sung lyrics about real bad dive-bar bands and a rude Waffle House waitress, Real Life depicts a place that's less than picture perfect but still feels just right. For Owen, the song takes him back to Vero Beach, Fla., where he grew up eating lunch at a place called Heavenly Wings and getting his performing chops at the Riverside Cafe.

"I know there have been millions of songs about 'my hometown,' and that's not what this song is to me," he says. "It's about how, as an individual, you stay real to who you are — the things and the friends that you have. All my friends that didn't move to Nashville are still in Vero, doing a lot of the same things they did when I lived there. That's why I love to go back, because I need that reality."

Owen says he believes Real Life sets up the themes for his fifth studio album, set for release later this year. The album, about half finished, also will include songs called Everybody Dies Young and American Love.

"There's a lot of reflecting for me on this record of looking back at how I felt in those situations — the first time you go out on a date with your girlfriend, or when I first turned 16 and got my car and I had independence and I could go out and be the guy who designated how the night went," he says. "There are all these young-love feelings about this record, things that bring me back home to the way I felt growing up."

Owen, who's supporting Kenny Chesney on several shows this summer, hasn't yet made Real Life a regular part of his set list.

"Every song I ever released, I would play months before it was released, thinking, 'What's a better way to test drive a song to see how it goes over?'" he says. "I'm already so confident in this song, and I think I've gotten to a point in my career where people are waiting to hear what's next, that when I do start playing it live, I want it to come off with a bang."