In the last five years, Chris Lane got married, became a father twice over and switched record labels.

What he hasn't done in that time is put out a new collection of music – until now.

Lane released his latest EP, "From Where I'm Sippin'," on Friday, his first release from his new collaboration between Rascal Flatts' Jay DeMarcus' record label Red Street Records and his own Voyager Records.

Lane co-wrote four of the five songs on the EP, which Derek Wells produced with Michael Lotten.

Songs on the new EP are a mix of Lane's pop country success stories and a more traditional route, which he couldn't be happier about.

"Find Another Bar," which he co-wrote with Justin Ebach and Josh Thompson and "From Where I'm Sippin'," which he co-wrote with Josh Miller, Jordan Minton and Mark Trussell, are "slightly different" than what fans are used to hearing from him, Lane says. But not much.

"I didn't want to deter too much away from some of the style songs that have given me the most success," he says. "I've still got 'Mistake' and 'Betcha,' stuff like that. Overall, to have a fiddle in a song, which I've always wanted, is definitely a little different for me. No doubt about it."

Lane says the more traditional turn in his music is influenced by the artists he listens to daily – Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson.

"It's the stuff that I grew up on that feels super nostalgic to me," he says. "I love that style, and I felt like 'From Where I'm Sippin'' would be a good way to infuse that a little bit."

He promises more songs in the '90s country vein with even more fiddle when he finishes the project.

"I'm super excited," he says.

He's also proud of his new business partnership with DeMarcus' Red Street Records. And he says he couldn't have made the move without support from his former record label, Big Loud. The switch, Lane says, was driven by his desire to release music at a faster pace.

"I've reached a beautiful part of my career where I could take the success that I've already had, have some more creative control over the songs through writing and recording and all that kind of stuff," he explains. "I think it's going to really allow me to put out the most music I've ever put out throughout my entire career and in a faster way."

Lane's hit songs include "Fix," "I Don't Know About You" and "Big, Big Plans." He's thankful for the success, but when it comes to music, he says he feels like he "starved my fanbase enough."

"My last project was in 2018, maybe 19, somewhere in there," he says. "I'd sprinkled a few songs between that, but it was time. And these are just the first five of many to come."

The singer has spent so much time touring that he never made songwriting a priority until this project. The result, he says, is an EP that's "definitely more me."

"I'm a writer on four out of the five and probably will be a writer on a majority of the songs throughout this entire project once it's fully finished," he says, explaining that "Mistake" is a crowd favorite that he's spent years trying to release.

"We're only (a few) days in, and it is probably the most reactive song I've ever had in my entire career," he says.

When people listen to the EP, he hopes they hear how much he's grown as a songwriter, artist and a man.

"At the end of the day, I think my ultimate goal is to have my songs take people to a certain place," he says. "Whether that's nostalgia or whether that's something that they're living through currently, much like all those old Kenny Cheney songs and old Tim McGraw songs do for me. I feel like it puts me at a very specific place in my life. Ultimately, when I sit down to write a song or record song, that's what I want is for people to connect with it in that same exact way."