Out with a New Album, Tyler Hubbard Is Loving His Solo Life: 'I Wouldn't Trade It' (Exclusive)

• Tyler Hubbard released his second solo record, Strong, on Friday
• The Georgia half of former country duo Florida Georgia Line has already landed two No. 1 songs
• Along the way, he's also showing off his long-proven knack for creating infectious melodies and catchy hooks

These days, there’s no such thing as “Cruise” control for Tyler Hubbard.

Less than 15 months after debuting his first solo project, the Georgian of Florida Georgia Line (and “Cruise” fame) is already releasing his second album — in about half the time the superstar duo took between LPs during their hit-making 12-year run.

“You know, half the artists, half the time for the album cycle!” Hubbard, 37, tells PEOPLE with a cheerful chuckle.

Well, that’s one explanation. But what’s really going on here is a singer-songwriter who’s keeping his foot on the gas of a solo career that’s obviously taken off. His self-titled debut album delivered two No. 1s — “5 Foot 9” and “Dancin’ in the Country” — and put him on the road touring with top draws Keith Urban and Old Dominion. Now, with the release on Friday of Strong, he’s ready to find out where his music will take him next.

In fact, he’s already out in front of himself.

“By the time my first album came out,” he says, “I was already halfway into feeling like I got half an album for the second album. And it’s the same with this one. The second album’s been done for six months, and already mentally, I’m halfway through the third album at this point. I’m usually living six or eight months ahead, so it makes it fun. I feel like the output is maybe higher than it’s been in a long time.”

Hubbard knows better than to ignore that creative spark. “Creativity comes in waves,” he says, “and I’m not expecting it to always stay like that, but right now it feels good. I’m just trying to ride it as long as I can. Right now, it just feels like I have to capitalize on this momentum, and I want to give the fans more music.”

His first album, Hubbard says, was his calling card — sent out into the world to see who it would attract. This time around, though, the music is a love letter to the throngs who’ve listened to the initial album and showed up at his concerts.

There’s no doubt in Hubbard’s mind that his growing fan base is responding to the bring-the-joy vibe found in his debut. “It’s fun tempo, live — that type of energy,” he says. “And that’s really what I’ve just been tapping into and really wanting to do.”

It’s easy to see where the spirit comes from. Hubbard is exuding happy these days. “I have a great family,” he says of his wife of nine years, Hayley, and their three children, daughter Olivia, 6, and sons Luca, 4½, and Atlas, 3½. “I have a career and writers and support and management that I love.”

Yes, he says, he can look back on his FGL years with gratitude and pride, but that era is increasingly distant in his rearview mirror. Onstage now, his only nod to those years is “Cruise" (which he's certain will always be on his setlist).

“It was a cool season of life, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” he says of his dozen years as one-half of the duo, “but I don’t want it back. I’m in a way different place, and I wouldn’t trade it.”

He and FGL partner Brian Kelley have never officially broken up, but clearly, they have mostly gone their separate ways since Kelley came to Hubbard four years ago and said he wanted to make his own music. At first, Hubbard thought he could content himself with songwriting, but he soon felt a strong pull back to the artist life.

Through it all, Hubbard has publicly supported Kelley’s solo career, and he’s now treating Kelley’s latest single, “Kiss My Boots” — which most are interpreting as a swipe at Hubbard — as a needless distraction, preferring not to comment on it in interviews about the new album.

In a prepared statement, he says: “I'm happy for BK, and I hope he’s happy and that he’s doing his thing and I'm doing my thing. I want only good things for him, and I wish him the best.”

Hubbard pours that same positivity into Strong. Most of its 13 tracks — all written or co-written by the artist — are tailor-made for jubilant live performances. Like the first album, they’re a celebration of what most captures Hubbard’s heart: his love for his wife, the simple life, and good times. Even the one breakup song, “Summer Talkin’,” is somehow void of any pain.

“I've been there — I’ve had my heart broken,” Hubbard allows, but he’s far more intent on filling the niche of merrymaking in country. “I feel like right now, in the climate of our genre and the culture, there’s a lot of sad going on, especially if you’re on social media. There’s always something that can just really suck the joy out of life. If I can make music that makes people happy and brings a little joy, then let’s do it.”

Along the way, he's also showing off his long-proven knack for creating infectious melodies and catchy hooks, as evidenced by current chart-climber “Back Then Right Now.” Another standout, “Vegas” has become his children’s favorite, much to his delight and a little to his chagrin.

The lyrics extol a love passionate enough to inspire a quick elopement to Las Vegas, and Olivia, Luca and Atlas are all fixated on a particular line, directed toward the love interest in the song: “Even though I know your daddy woulda killed me / I’da bought a couple tickets in a heartbeat.”

“They call it the ‘Daddy Killed Me’ song,” Hubbard says incredulously. “And I’m like, ‘You guys shouldn’t say that! It’s called “Vegas"!' But that’s the part that stands out to them. They say, ‘Will you play the ‘Daddy Killed Me’ song? I’m like, ‘No! What are you talking about?’ And they’re like, ‘Why would your daddy kill you?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, guys, come on. It’s just a saying.’ But try explaining that to a 3-year-old!”

No doubt the two most autobiographical songs on the album are “Take Me Back” and “’73 Beetle.” The first is a tribute to Monroe, Georgia, the hometown he couldn’t wait to leave, but now sees how much it shaped him.

"It was fun to just get vulnerable with that song,” says Hubbard. “I think it’s so common in our genre to talk about our pride of where we came from and to talk about our hometown as if we almost still live there. In reality, I left my hometown when I was 18, and I haven’t really been back but a handful of times in 18 years.”

One of those times, he shares, came last year when he performed for his high school’s 25th anniversary celebration. “So I took the whole family and showed my kids where I went to school, where I grew up. It was really cool — probably cooler for me than it was for them,” he says with a chuckle, “but it was a good experience.”

His tribute song to a beloved Volkswagen, he says, is really a continuing conversation that he began on his first album with his outpouring to his late father, “Miss My Daddy.” (Hubbard has solo writing credit on both.) The car was the one he learned to drive on, at age 14, and it eventually became a father-and-son garage project.

“Dad and I decided, well, let’s strip this car down and build a hot rod out of it,” he recounts, “and so we spent years working on it. It was supposed to be done when I was 16, but by the time I turned 18 and moved away, it still wasn’t finished.”

After his father died in a helicopter accident when Hubbard was 20, the car was mothballed in a Georgia barn for years until he had the resources to bring it to Nashville. “Now it’s in a shop, where it’s still sitting,” says Hubbard, “but pretty soon, they’re gonna get back to it. It might be a year from now, but I can’t wait until it’s done, and it can be a full-circle moment — just to keep that car forever and pass it on to the kids.”

In the meantime, another significant full-circle moment is happening now as Hubbard goes out on Kane Brown's “In the Air” arena tour. Eight years ago, Brown was the one providing support on FGL’s “Dig Your Roots” arena tour.

Hubbard insists he hasn’t let his ego get in the way of that serendipity.

“I think people expect it to be harder for some reason,” he says. “Honestly, after the pandemic, I’m just thankful to be out here playing music, and opening for Kane Brown is no small thing. That’s one of the biggest acts out there right now, and I’m proud of that.”

He says he’s also enjoying not feeling the pressure of being an arena headliner: “It’s nice to say, man, I’m just gonna come out here and play an hour and support Kane Brown and have a good time and learn from him the same way he learned from us coming up.”

Over the past year, Hubbard has also been out headlining venues smaller than arenas, and he likes it that way, too.

“It’s been the kind of rooms that [FGL] came up in, that I fell in love with doing this the first time,” he says. “It’s really been fun just to channel that again and get to go back to those rooms that I never thought I’d see again. That’s where the magic happens — that connection — in those small clubs.”

On the road, Hubbard says, he reminds his five bandmates to “soak it up, boys.” Despite the sizable legacy he’s brought into his solo career, he feels nothing but lucky to get a second act in a notoriously fickle industry. Now, he doesn’t want anything to slow the momentum he’s building.

In his 20s, he says, he couldn’t have begun to imagine he’d be where he is now. But now, he says, he’s actively building toward a future that he can envision for himself.

“I’d be so happy if I could just be in a place where I can play 30 or 40 shows a year — as many as I want to, not how many I need to,” he says. “And then just be with family and friends and write songs.”

Hubbard pauses, realizing he’s just described his life today — and, he affirms, “I really love where I am right now.”

And 10 years from now?

“I’d like to just be even a little bit more comfortable and a little bit more laidback and settled into my groove and not feel like I’m really trying to build something at the moment,” he says.

Then again, Hubbard amends, maybe he'll leave his options open. “Knock on wood, I’m sure I’ll get bored and want to build something,” he says. “But, you know, I think it’ll be nice to just settle into wherever this career takes me.”