Trace Adkins goes from reality-TV star to reality-TV songwriter

While writing the theme song to TruTV's new oil field reality show "Black Gold," country star Trace Adkins [ tickets ] had a little background information from which to pull lyrics. "I worked in off-shore drilling for six years; I worked in oil fields for 10 years," Adkins said via telephone from a recent tour stop in Oklahoma. "It's a dangerous job but that's what I dug about it. There's something about a job when you go to work [and have] the knowledge that you can get killed. That's a rush."Originally, Adkins and his band were asked to cover Molly Hatchet's "Flirtin' with Disaster" for the show, but the song "Black Gold" was born during a jam session."We did ['Flirtin' with Disaster'] and after that, Frank [Rogers, producer] said, 'Let's just write a 'Black Gold' song and see what they think.' The players started noodling along with a groove and they got this grungy, dirty kind of thing going. I threw some oil field lyrics on it and we cut it. And then we just sent them what they asked for and we sent them the song that we wrote--and that's the one they liked."Last year, Adkins was in the midst of recording a new album when Donald Trump approached him about participating in the Trump-helmed reality show "Celebrity Apprentice." "We were trying to finish up the next studio album and then the 'Apprentice' thing came along and I didn't have time to finish [the album]," said Adkins, who was the runner-up on "Celebrity Apprentice" earlier this year. "The label wanted new product in the store before Christmas [2007], so they packaged up a greatest-hits package and shipped it out."The aforementioned hits compilation came in the form of last December's "American Man, Greatest Hits Vol. 2," which features some of Adkins' biggest hits of the past five years alongside three new songs: "American Man," "I Got My Game On" and "You're Gonna Miss This."Adkins used his spot on "Celebrity Apprentice" to benefit the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, which provides education, advocacy and research support to families dealing with the daily nightmare of serious and/or life-threatening food allergies. The musician chose the charity because his 6-year-old daughter, Brianna, suffers from life-threatening reactions to peanuts, milk and eggs. With his turn on "Celebrity Apprentice" now behind him, Adkins said the new album is finished. He expects the first single to hit radio in July, and the album to follow some time in November.When he's looking for songs to record, Adkins said he seeks out tunes he can "sing with conviction, something that I feel passionate about lyrically." "It's not really difficult," Adkins said about narrowing down his song choices. "Nashville has some of the best songwriters in the world sitting there. A lot of them are my friends. They know me. They know what I like. They know what I'm about. They'll just write songs and direct them straight at me. Those songs just always seem to make me smack myself on the forehead. 'Oh, man, I should have wrote that.'"