Elvie Shane scored huge success with his heartfelt single inspired by his relationship with his stepson, “My Boy.” Now, he’s gearing up for his debut full-length album.

“My Boy” focuses on a relationship between a stepparent and stepchild, marking the meaningful milestones along the way:

“He ain't my blood, ain't got my name/ But if he did, I'd feel the same/ I wasn't there for his first steps/ But I ain't missed a ball game yet/ And that ain't ever gonna change/ I could never walk away/ Yeah, he's my son and that's my choice/ He ain't my blood, but he's my, he's my boy”

Shane caught up with iHeartCountry in an exclusive interview over the summer, dishing about his role as a family man and what’s next for his music career. He said, in part, of his stepson inspiring his hit single:

“…I met my wife about 10 years ago in Bowling Green (Kentucky). She was a waiter at a bar that I frequented, playing pool and just hanging out with some friends. As I grew to know her more, I found out she had a 5-year-old little boy at the time. Me and her ended up dating and about a year later, we ended up getting married, and so I became a step father.

“They [Shane’s wife and their son] really turned my life around. I was going down the wrong path and… I started coming to Nashville about three years after we had got together, and a friend of mine’s mom had sent me a post on Facebook that said, ‘I don’t have a stepson I have a son that was born before I met him,’ and that just really resonated with me… (I) just happened to be sitting out on the porch with three other songwriters that night and we got to talking about it (and decided), ‘let’s try to write this song.’”

Now, “My Boy” is one of 15 tracks listeners can expect on Shane’s first full-length album, Backslider, which is set to release on October 29. On the album, Shane aims to tell his own story and a broader one of life in small-town America.

“It’s about more than just me,” Shane said of his upcoming album in a statement. “Whether you’re from the United States or the other side of the world, we’ve probably experienced the same things: heartbreak, family trouble, love… the yearning for a better life. These songs are my personal stories written so they rhyme … but I think they are stories that happen to each and every one of us.”

Shane, who welcomed a baby girl with his wife earlier this year, told iHeartCountry about the values he hoped to instill as a father. “I would hope that it would just be a sense of open-mindedness and being accepting of people as individuals,” he said. “I grew up…I was told that I should only think this one thing about — whether it was religion, or politics or social constructs, or how people should love other people or whatever it may be — and the more that I’ve grown up, the more that I’ve realized and came to love individualism and all walks of life. I just want to kind of try to break the pattern of closed-mindedness and tunnel vision of growing up the way I did and where I did.”

Watch Shane’s full interview with iHeartCountry here:

Karla Cantrell

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