‘Hell’ raising singer to greater heights

For his second album, Rodney Atkins took a back-to-basics approach. He decided just to be himself.

It was one of the lessons the Curb recording artist learned with his 2003 debut album coincidentally named “Honesty.”

“It was a little bit of somebody else saying what they thought you should be versus what you really are,” Atkins said in a phone interview from a tour stop in Baton Rouge, La. “Now it’s about being yourself, not a manufactured image with some show biz sprinkled on it.”

Atkins, who will play Saturday at Ushuaia on Park Street in Orono, took a similar approach when preparing his new album “If You’re Going Through Hell.”

Writing in his home studio in rural Tennessee, he would sing the vocal tracks of his songs into a mike tied into his laptop, with none of the sophisticated sound equipment he could have used at a Nashville facility.

“When the head of A&R at Curb heard those work tapes, he told me to keep doing that, because it sounded less affected, more natural,” Atkins recalled. “It makes you a better singer, because what you sing is what you get.”

His fans seem to like what they’re hearing. “If You’re Going Through Hell” debuted at No. 1 on the country album sales chart, and the title single has been No. 1 for the past two weeks, after a gradual rise up the charts.

“It’s been an amazing year,” he said. “The single started connecting with people, and the label called about the album, which was only half ready at that point.”

Still, despite his success this year, Atkins is still playing all manner of venues. He’s opening for Brad Paisley at auditoriums, while headlining other shows. One recent week saw him performing at a festival at a Buffalo campground, doing several in-store appearances at Wal-Marts and playing clubs of various sizes. So he’s seeing crowds of a few hundred to several thousand.

“Something I’m having to learn to deal with is the proximity of the people to me,” he said. “I prefer to see them up close, so I can see their reactions. At the festivals, people are looking at the big screen, not at you.”

Atkins makes his national network TV debut Sept. 14, when he performs on the “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” on CBS. His second single, coming out Sept. 18, is “Watching You.” The song is about a young boy emulating his father. It was inspired by an incident when Atkins was taken aside by a day-care worker who explained that his 4-year-old son, Elijah, was singing “If You’re Going Through Hell” on the lunch line.

The East Tennessee native isn’t letting success go to his head.

“I’ve been doing this awhile, since 1996,” he said. “I appreciate how hard this is. I know it’s not easy, that it takes more work that I ever imagined. You don’t take it for granted when someone says your song is their anthem, which has helped them through hard times. You’re humbled to be the guy singing these songs.”

Opening for Rodney Atkins will be Bucksport’s own Gilpin Railroad incident. Tickets are available at all Bull Moose or Strawberries locations or at Ticketweb.com. For more information, call Ushuaia at 866-7700.

Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028 and dmcgarrigle@bangordailynews.net.