And something must be "right," because this week, Set You Free debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200 album chart, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The first single from Set you Free, "Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain)," is Number One on the country singles chart this week as well.

As Gary explained in an interview with Pat and Tom from Sacramento station KNCI, this in some ways worked to his advantage. It also inadvertently led to him trying some new approaches to the recording process.

"We had a label head change," he explains � last year, the outgoing Luke Lewis was replaced by Mike Dungan, who is now Chairman & CEO of Universal Music Nashville Entertainment. So "I did the whole album kind of in the blurry zone" during that transition time, Gary says.