Parker McCollum has a Top 15 hit with “What Kinda Man.” The song, from McCollum’s eponymous fifth studio album, was written by McCollum, along with Natalie Hemby and Jeremy Spillman.

“I’m a little nervous about this song,” McCollum admitted to Billboard when the song was released. “I think it’s going to stick out on country radio like a sore thumb.”

Keep reading to find out more about McCollum’s latest hit single.

What Inspired Parker McCollum’s “What Kinda Man”

Several years before McCollum released “What Kinda Man,” he began working on the song, after turkey hunting in Kansas.

“Parker just gifted this to us like our Christmas presents,” Hemby remembers. “So very grateful to him. Maybe we changed a couple of lines, but that was about it on the first verse and chorus. He came in with a mapped-out idea.”

Fans can thank McCollum’s wife, Hallie Ray, for the singer even writing the song at all.

“I was never going to get married, never going to have kids…and when I met Hallie Ray, that all kind of changed,” McCollum tells Country Now. “I really did feel like, you know, forget the man I am, what kind of man do you need? I’ll do anything. And it was good for me. I needed to clean up my act, and she was the one that made me want to do that.”

Why Parker McCollum Released “What Kinda Man” As A Single

McCollum is just as surprised as anyone that “What Kinda Man” not only became a single, but is doing so well, since it’s not the typical country song. But for McCollum, it’s most important not that it does well at radio, but that it sounds like omething his heroes would approve of.

“The only thing I ever think about when I write songs is, would Rodney Crowell think this is good?” McCollum says, “Would Steve Earle think this is good? Would James McMurtry or Robert Earl Keen think this is good for country music? And I think they would think this song was good for country music.”

The Cover Art Parker McCollum Chose For “What Kinda Man”

Thank McCollum also for the cover art for “What Kinda Man,” which is an actual church. The church also inspired a line in the song, “I swore that I would never step foot / Back inside the Union Valley Church again / But here I stand just north of Oklahoma / Trying to wash away my sins.”

McCollum actually drove past that actual church on his way home from the turkey hunt, and even pulled in to the parking lot, although not for reasons the church would necessarily condone.

“We’d actually pulled over right there to smoke a joint, which is a little sacrilegious,” McCollum concedes. “But I took the picture on my phone.”

McCollum got permission from the church to use the photo, even though he later found out the lyric is incorrect.

“I took a picture of this church as the sun was going down,” McCollum shares. “It’s called Union Valley Church. I had it on my phone. We were writing a second verse, and I’m like, ‘Man, why don’t we put this church in here? It’d be cool that it’s right on the Oklahoma, Kansas line.’

“It actually turns out it’s in Oklahoma, which I found out when my team got approval to use the photo I’d taken for the single artwork,” he adds. “So the song is technically incorrect.”

Find “What Kinda Man” and all of McCollum’s music and upcoming shows, at ParkerMcCollum.com.