EDMONTON - Jason McCoy enjoys the best of both worlds when it comes to the music he plays. His popular band The Roadhammers devotes itself to driving Southern rock and trucker songs, while McCoy’s solo career stays true to his country roots. The Hammers have also picked up the chart action (both in Canada and the States) that McCoy has been denied since his second and third albums made him a genuine Canadian star back in the mid-’‘90s.

Now that McCoy and his Roadhammer compatriots Chris Byrne and Clayton Bellamy have put the band on hiatus after a seven-year run, McCoy is back to the basic building blocks of his career — his voice, an acoustic guitar and an audience. The roar of electric guitars may have galvanized him over the last few years as The Roadhammers went from a fun musical goof to a very successful side foray, but McCoy’s just-released seventh solo album, Everything, shows that he’s still a storyteller at heart.

The Journal talked to him about his career:

Q: Did you determine at some point that Everything and the resulting solo tour supporting it would be the opposite of what you do with the Roadhammers?

A: “It wasn’t intentional, no, but after playing loud, in-your-face music, I figured it would be nice to get back to what I used to love to do, and what I feel most at home with. I just love grabbing that real strong connection with the audience.”

Q: You must have continued writing solo material even as you were touring and recording with The Roadhammers. Do you have a process by which you determine which songs go with which project?

A: “Not really; the songs on Everything were just ones that I liked. I write kids’ music too but I don’t have a kids’ album. I just write what I feel like. When it came time to make this record, I just picked the songs I dug, and they didn’t have to be possible radio chart-toppers or overthought. It was just ‘Ah, I like this guitar riff, or this lyric.’ Maybe that’s the only reason why some of those songs are even on the record.”

Q: That takes a certain amount of guts, to ignore the demands of the marketplace when you’re in such a commercial genre.

A: “Well, I should say that I’m a chart follower like anyone else. But I really made a concerted effort to say to myself that if (Everything) doesn’t get any attention, well fine. If it does, then that’s all the better. I’m not saying I’m a freewheeling rebel or anything. There can be a fear that people will say ‘Jason who?’ You definitely don’t want that either. I’ve been blessed to have a few years under my belt, so I’m not running on that fear.”

Q: So you’re not worried that the picture people may have in their minds is that of Jason McCoy, rocker, and that this turn back to country might be confusing?

A: “You know, one of the reasons why I started the Hammers was because after I released my greatest hits album (in 2005), I had no clear sense of what I wanted to do. At the time, the music you heard on the country stations was maybe a mix between Kenny Chesney and kind of a light (Bruce) Springsteen. I had to ask myself if that’s what I wanted to do — be a good country singer or a lousy pop-country singer?

The album I did with Colin Linden (2003’s Sins, Lies & Angels) was important for me because he really had a strong magnetic reading of who I was, of where my roots lay. I’ve embraced who I am, and I’m a country singer; I like to tell jokes, have fun, and not overthink it.”

-- Concert preview

Jason McCoy

When: Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Festival Place, 100 Festival Way, Sherwood Park

Tickets: $30 to $36, available from the Festival Place Box Office, 780-449-3378, or Ticketmaster