“When I was thinking about this project, I really wanted to say something beyond break-up songs and love songs,” says Kameron Marlowe. “I wanted to throw life songs in there as well. These are all real things that I’ve gone through, and there’s a lot of loss, there’s a lot of pain, there’s a lot of love. It really tells the story of these past two years.”

One of Nashville’s most exciting up-and-coming voices, Marlowe has indeed been through some changes recently, from adapting to a new life on the road to breaking through with the Platinum-certified single “Giving You Up” and touring alongside some of country music’s biggest stars. That journey is reflected in the sixteen songs of his sophomore album, Keepin’ the Lights On, from the introspection of “On My Way Out” to the romantic turmoil of “Strangers.”

“I grew a lot mentally,” says Marlowe of the album’s emotional range. “I had a lot of hard stuff on my plate and I had to learn to be a little stronger and not take things so personally all the time. I learned how to fall back in love—getting engaged and fixin’ to get married—after going through a situation I wrote about on the last record. I’ve lived a lot of life in the past few years that really opened my mind to some new ideas.”