David Nail's Fighter isn't the same album he originally set out to make. The album dropped Friday (July 15), but it's come a long way since he first started recording it. The singer stopped by the Taste of Country Nights studio and opened up about the progression.

Fighter is arguably Nail's best work to date, and it's also his most personal. The music is heavy, and probably not something you'd want to listen to for relaxation.

“I don’t know if it’s one of those records you want to listen to at 9 o’clock in the morning. It’s more of a happy hour/late night decompress album, I think," he explains.

The 11-track album has different parts, which is probably partly due to the way he recorded it. He cut the bulk of it a year ago, and just recently added the last few songs to the MCA Nashville record.

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“If you listen to the record there are phases of it. It really helped kind of sum up the first collection of four or five songs in the beginning before you get to the really in depth stuff," Nail says, adding, "This record kind of has two parts. There’s the initial Fighter record which was finished about this time last year, and then we recently, probably three months ago, went in and recorded four more songs.”

The added tracks include the Chris Stapleton-written "Ease the Pain" and the final track, "Old Man's Symphony," which features Bear Rinehart from NeedToBreathe. These four songs were incredibly impactful to what the album became for Nail.

“I think what Fighter was a year ago and what Fighter is now is completely different. Those four songs changed the dynamic of the record and it really became an extremely personal record.”

David Nail's Fighter is now available in stores and from digital retailers, including iTunes.

Sam Alex is the host of Taste of Country Nights radio, a syndicated night show which airs on more than 75 stations nationwide. Listen to highlights on iTunes or your Android device.

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