Kellie Pickler Sets Release Date for New Album ‘100 Proof’

Kellie Pickler has a holiday gift for her fans and it's  '100 Proof,' her 2012 album. Pickler chose the title of the album, which is now set to be released on January 6, as a way to say she is 100% country, according to her website.

The songs, Pickler said, are very personal reflections about her turbulent childhood in Albermale, N.C. Her grandparents raised her after her mother abandoned her and her father was jailed.

"It would not have been surprising if I had followed the same sets of steps of my raising. I think I just didn't want to be that person," Pickler recently told The Boot. "I just went home the other week, and I ran into some people that I've known growing up, and they're still in the same exact place, mentally, that they were then. There's been no growth. There's no depth. It's like flat paint ... It's so sad. I grew up hearing everyone around me complain about everything. Hated their job, hated this, hated that. So miserable ... Minimum wage and living paycheck to paycheck and still not having the lights on."

Pickler wrote about her sad upbringing on the song 'I Wonder' from her 2006 debut album, 'Small Town Girl,' but it wasn't until now that she was ready to divulge more.

She continued to say that when she wrote the song 'Mother's Day' with her husband (then her fiancee) Kyle Jacobs, it unleashed her emotions and silence.

"He came over and brought his guitar, and we went through all the feelings, all the emotions, all the thoughts that I have and go through on Mother's Day, and why it's so difficult for me," she said. "It's one of those things where it's like a slap in your face. We put as much as we could into three minutes of that. That was really therapeutic, and really amazing to get to write with him, especially when you hear the song, and you get to the second verse -- that was so special to write with him."

Pickler performed two songs from her new album, 'Tough' and 'Stop Cheatin' on Me,' last week at the Grand Ole Opry.

Watch Kellie Pickler Perform New Songs