Randy Houser applies lessons from fatherhood to making his third album, 'How Country Feels'

“Before I became a father, I kind of put all the pressure on myself to do everything and write everything mostly and really sink every moment into it. And this time, it was really pleasure,” he said in a phone interview from his Nashville, Tenn., home.

On Jan. 22, the singer-songwriter will release his third album, “How Country Feels,” a 15-track record for which he penned seven songs. Houser, who turns 36 on Tuesday, will preview some of the new tunes, including the hit title track, during an acoustic set Thursday at Riverwind Casino, where he will headline Jake's Jingle Jam.

“You know, making a record is also like having a baby, raising a child for a year, too. Definitely more of my time was devoted to my son and my wife, you know, but I mean, that's not to give the wrong impression. I don't want anybody to think the album suffered at all for it. ... It's definitely the best album I've had,” Houser said last week, noting that his boy, West Yantz Houser, just turned 9 months old.

“I didn't write as many of the songs on this one as I did the last one just simply because we have a new baby and ... trying to learn how to be a father and all that, I just didn't have time.”

Perhaps because the Mississippi native got his start in Nashville as a songsmith — he wrote Trace Adkins' 2005 smash “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” with Jamey Johnson and Dallas Davidson — he felt compelled to craft most of the songs on his first two albums: He co-penned eight of the 11 tracks on his 2008 debut “Anything Goes,” including his first top 10 hit, “Boots On,” and wrote or co-wrote all 11 cuts on his 2010 outlaw-inspired follow-up “They Call Me Cadillac.”

“I think if you were to go back and listen to the last album, the ‘Cadillac' album, you know, that was when I was dealing with a darker place in my life. I can tell by listening to it. So yeah, I think the records usually represent what I'm going through at the time, where I'm living and where I'm at emotionally,” he said. “I think this is a much happier album. Now it's got definitely a lot more colorful — the sounds are, the songs are. You know, I'm just a happier man.”