albums, Chad soon discovered another benefit of a chart-crashing artist – the best songs started coming his way. "With 'Yes!' being a huge, successful record, the publishing community really opened up to me and pitched me wonderful songs," he praises. "Everybody came in with different songs they thought were good for me – their best stuff – and we took it."

Not only took it, but ran with it. Chad's third effort sizzles with real-life dramas, most involving falling in love, staying in love or falling out of love. The album vibrates with honest, soul-searching variations of love from a multitude of angles and deep-rooted feelings. Though the lyrics often radiate with pain and self-doubt, they also glimmer with hope and newfound self-awareness. The ten new cuts are strong on a CD packed with potential singles, along with three hit bonus tracks from the past. “I'm very happy to think that I have six, maybe more, singles on this record,” the Ocala, Florida native notes.

“Tell Me How,” the first single, typifies the dramatic journey Chad makes into his heart and soul, arriving at the most heartfelt, hurt-felt outpouring of words and music he has ever created. The pain of lost love prods questions that may never be answered: “How am I supposed to live without you now/How do I go on breathing/When the dream that I've been living's left me now/Tell me how.”

“This is one of the most passionate songs I've ever heard in my life,” says Chad. “There are a lot of folks who have been through that. It makes people think about things – happy emotions, sad emotions. If I can make them feel something, I've done my job.”

Initially, when Chad listened to the playback of his take on the song, he didn't like what he heard. “I felt my vocals might have been too shaky because I was choked up when I was singing it. But then I listened to it again and went, 'Man, that's got emotion, that's got what this song needs.'”

“The whole world's your oyster/She's your pearl/Now park the pickup; kiss the girl,” Chad urges in another highlight, “Park The Pickup.” Again, it took the second time around to get it right. “When I was playing it live, people were flipping out over it,” he says. “But we cut it almost like the demo, and it didn't come off right. We just didn't capture it.” So Chad went back into the studio to re-record it, and the new version took wing.

“The first time I played it was at a show in Florida at a fair,” he recalls. “On a Monday afternoon, you don't get a very young crowd – here I am with the average age of 60. I said, 'Raise your hand if you remember the last time you went parking.' All these hands went up, and by the end of the song, they were going crazy. So it brought back memories and made them smile from ear to ear.”

Chad co-wrote “The Thought Of Bein' In Love,” a lesson in making the most of love lost, dreams destroyed and hopes harpooned. It's like discovering that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train after all, but it's not the Love Boat either.

After being released in February of 2000, “Yes!” continues to maintain its popularity on the charts and in his concerts. “I was looking at the Billboard Monitor playlist and 'Yes!' is still a heavy recurrent,” he reports. “That's wonderful.” The concert response is equally encouraging. “When I begin the last song of the show, everybody starts singing 'Yes!;' then I go into it. At a recent show in Oregon I asked, 'How many of y'all do not know this song – raise your hands.' Everybody's hands stayed down. They knew the words and that makes me feel real good.”

But it was “Ordinary Life” that greased the wheels for the success of “Yes!,” Chad points out. “It was a No. 1 record for me in 1999, and it was the one that really put me out there. Country radio listened to it because it was such a big song, setting the stage for everything I've ever done.”

Onstage, Chad likes to get his audiences fired up. “I try to get them on their feet,” he notes. “If they're just sitting down, why are they there? Why am I there? I try new things to entertain them and make them laugh, make them get their money's worth.”

And he likes to get their attention with perfectly plotted songs like “The Lie,” one of his favorites on the new album. “Some would say she's wrong to keep/The secret from him but she/Knows the truth would tear his world apart/She's gonna live and die with the lie.” The secret is revealed in subtle hints as the musical narrative dramatically unfolds into unfinished sympathy.

“I like to cut something on my records that makes people go, 'Wow!'” says Chad. “I like twists and turns in songs, and this one has a huge twist. It's different, a little bit controversial, but this story has happened to people. They have lived it. I mulled it over for a long time – do I want to cut this? And the answer was, 'I do.'”

Chad's happy that the bonus tracks include hits like “Yes!” and “Ordinary Life” that launched his career. “A lot of folks know that music, but they don't know Chad Brock,” he says. “This will help them know who I am.”

“Right Now” represents the first love song Chad has ever recorded. He handles it with a masterful performance as twirling emotions of escalating love are vividly painted through the sensitive lyrics: “I'm gonna hold you like there's no tomorrow/Reach into your soul somehow/If I didn't already love you/I'd fall in love/ Right now.”

“Sam Mullins co-wrote this and I've been a fan of his for a long time,” Chad reveals. “I've always steered away from ballads that were love songs, but when I heard this song, I wanted to cut it for Sam because I love his writing. We set the background vocals up just a little bit higher to make it sound almost like a duet. I wanted that sort of duet kind of feel to it.”

Chad likes “I'd Like To See You Try” so much that he plans to put it in his show. A teasing keyboard intro prefaces the mid-tempo number about a half-hearted attempt at remaining aloof from a potential relationship. He first heard the song when he played a demo of it while driving. “It's well-written, fun song,” he says. “Any time that a song makes you feel good when you drive, and has got a cool groove to it, that's great. Put the top down, crank it up, and drive the car.”

III is lovingly dedicated to his grandmother, Margaret Stafford, who recently died. She had played music for 69 years in the First Baptist Church of Coleman, Florida, where his grandfather served as the minister. “She was an integral part of my life when it comes to music,” Chad praises. “She just loved music. When I was at her funeral, it felt like a celebration of her life. She had been a teacher for many years, and music was a chief part of her way of teaching. She was 92, had lived a wonderful life, and it was all very uplifting.”

“I want to keep making music as long as those folks out there let me. Hopefully, I will get better and better each time. I feel we've progressed tremendously from the first album to the third album. I want to try new things, different things, on the next record. When you limit yourself, you fail. Life is a learning process, and so is music.”