The setting is Music Row, specifically RCA Studio A on the last day of August, and Jamey Johnson is ready to talk about his sprawling new Mercury release "The Guitar Song," which hit shelves Sept. 14.

A few industry folks hang out in the control room, entertaining Johnson's young brindle pit bull, Hank, and making small talk. But when Johnson enters the room, dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans, non-Western boots and a trucker cap turned backward over his shaggy mane, things get more serious. The room mostly clears out, save the imposing presence of producer/engineer T.W. Cargile, who looms silently in the background. Over-used as it is, the "outlaw" label immediately comes to mind.

Johnson is aware that doing press is necessary, particularly with a conceptual double CD split into a Black Album and a White Album. But that doesn't mean he enjoys it. In fact, the former Marine reserve corporal with a biker's presence looks as if he'd just as soon kick an interviewer's ass as answer questions.

But the mood lightens and Johnson gives it a shot, providing quietly measured, steely responses, sometimes preceded by as much as 30 seconds of thought, stroking his lengthy beard with a right hand adorned with a large skull ring. Laughs, however understated, come infrequently, but they do occasionally come. Johnson is stone serious about his work and is not real high on discussing it.

In a contemporary country music world where true rebels (as opposed to wannabe shitkickers who prattle on endlessly about how "country" they are) are hard to find, Johnson has emerged from Montgomery, Ala., as a sort of New South 2.0 throwback iconoclast, armed with serious songwriting chops and savvy musical instincts. He's like country music's crazy, maybe even dangerous, cousin that cannot be ignored as he sings about such matters as cocaine and whores. And he just might have released the most important country album in a decade.

Billboard: What were your expectations when you moved to Nashville?

Jamey Johnson: I don't know that I had any particular expectations. Still don't, for that matter. I knew that I wanted to write songs and go around and sing my songs for the people. I'm not sure exactly where that desire comes from, or where the ability comes from, but I would assume they both come from the same source.

Do you come from a musical background?

Everybody in my family is a better musician than me.

Montgomery, Ala., also has a pretty strong musical history.

There's a lot of great, talented singers from that area that never made their mark, or never really wanted to. Every now and then, one of them will slip out and go become somebody's legend. Nat King Cole was born in Montgomery. Hank Williams, he wasn't born there, but he lived there from the time he was a young boy. I grew up listening to guys like Vern Gosdin, Hank, Waylon [Jennings], Buddy Holly. If you're from the area, you're going to hear some country music, some blues, gospel -- you're gonna hear it all.

How tough was it to become part of a music scene when you first got to Nashville? 

It's still tough today.

Well, obviously you found some good writers to work with. 

I found some good writers and some good players. The guys I make music with are some of the finest musicians that I've ever met. Some of the worst people, but some of the finest musicians. It's definitely a town that is loaded with talent. You can go door-knocking around here and put together a better band than what's out there touring and making six figures a year, seven figures, some of those guys. I was particularly humbled one time to find out the guy that was delivering pizzas was also singing demos and making more than I was.

How autobiographical is your song "Between Jennings & Jones," (from 2008 breakthrough album "That Lonesome Song")?

When it comes to the songs, my feeling is to let them speak for themselves. I do that with every song I've written. I can tell you about the recording process or whatever, but as far as diving in to fact and actuality, I'm not gonna do that. The way I feel about that, to elaborate even further, is when you look at a piece of art and you don't have the painter to stand there and answer all the questions, it's the questions that become the art. So I appreciate the question.

When you released your first album "The Dollar" (on BNA), do you feel like you played by the rules,? 

There's a type of personality that works really well in that environment of over-driven press, I'd say. The red carpet deals, the high-dollar dinners. Looking good is way more important than being intelligent. Nobody cares what you have to say or really what you think about anything -- just stand there and look good and keep signing those autographs. That's not what I signed up for. That's never been on my agenda, trying to get to somebody's VIP party or trying to look big and rich and all that kind of stuff. That's never been on my priority list at all.

You don't always know God's plan for your life. When things like that happen it's not just frustrating, it's all kinds of different feelings that come into play. The main lesson I learned was to calm down first, let everything settle, and then figure it out. [Songwriter/producer] Buddy Cannon gave me a great little bit of advice when I was going through that period. He said, "If you sit and focus, you can write your way out of this. I've seen it happen to people hundreds of times, where you just sit down and write the song the way you feel the emotion." And so far, he's pretty well accurate on that. It keeps workin'.

Is that when you wrote the bulk of "That Lonesome Song"? 

Yeah.

So it was completely done when you took it to Mercury?

I had released it on the Internet. I had already turned down two record labels. Both of them said they wanted me to make records for them, but neither one of them said they wanted that record. So neither one of them got that record. I sat down and talked with [Mercury chairman] Luke Lewis, and one of the first things he said about it was "I don't know what you guys are doin' in that studio, I don't care. Just don't mess with that sound." I said, "Hell, I came here to tell you that." That's how we started off our relationship. Since then it's been a great union, I'd say, of artist and label. I've heard some horror stories about how this or that deal went. Everybody's got their hurdles they have to go over, but where I'm at now is clearly the best place I could be.

NEXT: Jamey on creative freedom and "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk"