When Joe Nichols finished recording his new single “Better Than You,” he walked out of the studio with a specific song on his mind.

Jason Aldean‘s Grammy-nominated “Don’t You Wanna Stay” with Kelly Clarkson was released 14 years ago this month. For so many reasons, Nichols’ duet with Annie Bosko was giving him those vibes.

• Joe Nichols’ Honky Tonks & Country Songs was released on Oct. 25.
• A cover of Hank Williams Jr.’s “Country Boy Can Survive” is also featured on an album Nichols describes as “super country.”
• He talked to Taste of Country Nights host Evan Paul about the album and more.

For starters, “Better Than You” was written as a true duet. It’s also very believable, much like the Aldean/Clarkson song. Nichols had a lot to do with this.

“You have a lot of great singers who are 20 years younger than me, 25 years younger me that are out there,” he says. “That’s not gonna be cool at my age to be singing with a 22-year-old girl.”

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He praises Bosko as an old soul who shares a love of old country music. That’s been his lane, especially over the last decade. The “Sunny and 75” singer hopes people hear ’90s influences all across Honky Tonks and Country Songs, and maybe even a fewer older than that.

“It’s a very scary thing for me because I listen to the radio, I listen to a lot of what’s working, and it’s hard to go against the grain,” he tells Evan Paul. “Sometimes you feel like, ‘I don’t have anything that sounds like the last five songs that have played.’ That really kind of scares you to death.”

Mickey Jack Cones helped produced Nichols’ new album. He was also part of Aldean’s team during the My Kinda Party days. For the singer, “Better Than You” has that kind of potential.

It helps that Nichols feels comfortable singing the lover each night on stage. That’s a weird thing in itself, he’ll say. The last thing he wants is wife Heather wondering where the line between fact and fiction really lies.

“It’s something that you have to train yourself to go, ‘Alright this has gotta be like a play,'” he says.