Exclusive Q&A: Dylan Schneider Dives Into The Making Of His Long-Awaited Debut Album, ‘Puzzled’

After eight years of living in Nashville and building his discography with heart pumping tunes that continue to elevate his live shows, Dylan Schneider, is taking the next step in his career with the release of his debut album, Puzzled.  

This is the first opportunity the rising star has to show the world how much has gone into building out his career, piece by piece. Throughout the 16 tracks, he draws from the same vibrancy from his live shows and serenades listeners with his unique pop-country flair with a side of rock and roll toughness.

Excitement has already been brewing steadily for the full-length collection to unleash, as Schneider grew anticipation with the release of stand-out songs like “Bad Decisions,” “Ain’t Missin’ You,” “Buy That Girl A Beer,” “Ruin This Town,” and the closing track, “Daddy Drinks Whiskey.” Additionally, as a special bonus, he unveiled his rendition of Dustin Lynch’s RIAA-certified GOLD Top 5 hit, “Momma’s House,” a song written by Schneider in collaboration with Justin Wilson, Michael Lotten, and Rodney Clawson.

The project opens with “Carhartt,” a clever take on the classic one-night stand experience, and is proceeded by a celebration of the small-town way of life in “Country Right” and “Without June,” a spell-bending love story inspired by that of the famous country music romance between Johnny Cash and June Carter. Later on, he admits to being “Bad At Breaking Up,” pays tribute to his roots in “Truck I Grew Up In” and delivers the perfect remedy for heartbreak in “Better Than You Left Me.” 

Schneider co-wrote every song on the project except for the title track which he penned entirely on his own. The inspiration for this song stemmed from a gift he received while performing at a festival that gave him the missing piece to make this record complete.  

Dylan Schneider caught up with Country Now ahead of today’s release to discuss the makings of his first full-length collection, advice he’s received from superstars like Kane Brown and Nate Smith, and his upcoming Bad Decisions headline tour and more.

Learn more in this exclusive Q&A:

How are you feeling as the release date approaches?

It’s been a long time coming after being in Nashville for now, almost eight years and putting out so much music. Finding the right time to finally do the full project, it feels good to have it done and feeling like it’s the best stuff I’ve done yet. So I’m stoked.

You gave listeners a preview of the full album with the “Bad Decisions” EP. How did you go about choosing which songs to release ahead of the project?

Well, there’s a lot of new stuff on the album that wasn’t even written yet and I had to kind of kick it into gear towards the end because we had already picked out the date we were looking at, what we wanted to do, but luckily, with ‘Ain’t Missin’ You’ and ‘Bad Decisions,’ those songs were already kind of picking up speed and feeling good. The little batch included ‘Daddy Drinks Whiskey’ too, but with ‘Ruin This Town’ and ‘Buy That Girl a Beer’ and ‘Carhartt,’ those are kind of sitting around for a while. We were really excited about it so we wanted to just go ahead and put them out because they were done and they were ready. We wanted to kind of build some excitement and hype for what was to come.

“Bad Decisions” has quickly gained popularity among your fans. How does it feel to see it spark such a positive reaction?

It’s really cool. It was my first song that they ever played on SiriusXM on The Highway, so that was a cool experience getting to hear that and getting to ride around in the car and it sometimes comes on. That’s been a whole new platform that, like I said, I just haven’t really got to be exposed to yet. So, I feel like I got a lot of new fans from that song having its success and doing really well. It’s obviously huge for what’s to come with the new album and everything else. So yeah, it just kind of got the ball rolling and made it feel that much more exciting.

When you were writing “Bad Decisions,” did you have any sort of feeling or indication that it would be as big as it has become?

I didn’t really know with that one. I know a lot of people were excited about it out of the gate and I knew it felt different than a lot of the stuff I’ve been doing at that time, so the fact that once we finally got it produced out and recorded in the studio and it came out and it did what it did, it was definitely very, very rewarding and exciting to know that people were loving it. I don’t know if I could tell right at the beginning if that one was going to be a big one that would catch everyone’s ear or not, but I loved the idea. I loved what we were saying with it and I knew that it would be relatable, but no, I’m pleasantly surprised with the success it’s had overall and how it’s kind of made a name for itself in my catalog.

Talk about why you decided to include your own version of Dustin Lynch’s “Momma’s House” on this album.

Ever since we wrote that song, everybody’s always loved when I played the demo form or something like that. They’re always like, ‘Oh, when are you going to put your version out?’ Because it was my voice originally on the demo and we wrote it at a writer’s camp back in 2018. It’s a couple half steps higher than what they recorded with Dustin. So it’s kind of got my flair, my voice, it sticks out, uniquely. Also, when we wrote it, the bridge was different. We ended up writing two or three different bridges that they wanted to have for their options, and I think they put two of the three that we wrote, we put them together like the front half and the back half, and it made a whole new thing that they wanted to do. So it was pretty cool, but I’ll have my original version that we did, just like the demo and everything, but it’ll be fully produced out. I got to work on that with Zach Abend, who produced this whole record, besides a couple of songs, and we really just kind of figured out the sound and the feel of what we were going for.  I’m excited for everyone to finally get to hear my version of it. And for those who don’t know yet or haven’t heard that I was the writer on it, it’ll show that off too, which will be really cool.

Since this is your debut album, what did you want this collection of songs to say about you and your career?

I kind of had talked about themes of the album and what I wanted to say and I guess what I was saying to a lot of the people at the label and management and stuff describing it, I was like, ‘I want to explain how I’ve been living in Nashville and didn’t grow up the typical way.’ After eight years of living in Nashville, I’m finally making this album and I’ve grown up a lot in that time. I just wanted it to be kind of an encapsulation of showing that my life has changed so much from the beginning to now. 

What sparked the idea for the title track, “Puzzled”?

I didn’t really know what to call it, and I remember we were playing these festivals out in Scottsdale and Albuquerque, and they were called Boots in the Park. They gave me these puzzles that were like the poster for the festivals and the first one, had Thomas Rhett and then the lineup of everybody that played the next day. Then they gave me one of just me and I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of dope.” It was a puzzle of myself, and I was like, let’s go and put it together and then I was like, wait, I should call my album “Puzzled” and have this whole thing with the album cover be a puzzle and talk about in the song. I had the idea to write the song and just talk about how through all these years of growing up and trials and tribulations and just figuring things out, it’s just been a puzzle. That’s how I kind of came up with it.

How did this song end up being the only solo write on the project? 

The day before we were going to cut the last few songs, I still hadn’t got the song written yet because I had a couple of people in mind that I wanted to work with. I remember I reached out to HARDY because he wanted to try to write something on the album.  We didn’t end up getting it done in time and I needed to have it done so the night before we went into record, I wrote it and it’s the only song on the album that I wrote by myself, like completely. It just came together in like an hour, hour and a half and I felt really happy about it. I sent it in to a couple of people that were like, yeah, this is awesome. And I knew I needed to have the song for the idea of the album, I definitely wanted to have the track on there with the same title and everything.  It came together and we went and recorded the next day. It was just my acoustic guitar and voice demo and the band went in and made it what it is now. And I love it. I’m really excited about it. I don’t think it’s going to be a radio hit or anything, but everybody that doesn’t know a whole lot about me or hasn’t got to have a peek inside of my life over the last few years, it kind of explains it. It’s autobiographical, it’s definitely a personal song and I got a few of those personal songs on here. So I’m just trying to share a little bit more myself.

Have you received any advice from any other country stars on building out your debut album?

Yeah, I mean I’ve talked to Nate Smith and Kane Brown a little bit recently as well. We were just talking about it the other night. He got to finally listen to it all about a week ago or so. They’ve just stressed to me to be yourself as much as you can, be proud of the music you want to put out, don’t rush yourself, and don’t put out stuff you don’t want to put out. ‘Cause at the end of the day, especially with the debut album, it’s a stamp of what you’re going to be and who you’re going to be for a little while as an artist in the eyes of everybody. So I think it was just making sure that you’re delicate with like the art you create and be true to yourself. I mean, that’s one of the biggest things that people have always stressed to me. And I think with some of those guys too, even if it was at the beginning or even if it’s now, they’ve shown themselves through their art and they’ve been the realist artists that can be at different times. So I hope that I start off on the right foot.

How are you preparing for your headlining Bad Decisions Tour this fall?

We’ll be all over. I mean, this is the first headlining tour I’ve done in a long time. So I’m excited about that. I’m already seeing a bunch of ticket sales, which is great…it’s going to be the longest sets we’ve been playing in a little while. We’re going to get to play more music than usual. We’re going to get to play a whole lot of new music. I’m excited to get to try out all these new songs and bring a show that nobody’s ever seen yet.

Fans can keep up with Dylan Schneider on Instagram.