Adam Sanders may not be a household name, at least not yet, but country music fans know his music. The Florida native has written some of the biggest hits of the last few years, including Cole Swindell’s “Ain’t Worth the Whiskey” and “Hell of a Night” by Dustin Lynch, among others. He has also been developing his own career as an artist, which is why he decided to release “Make Em Wanna Change,” inspired by a true story, on his own. Adam wrote the song with Adam Craig and Dallas Wilson, and felt that it was the perfect song to take his career as a singer and a songwriter to the next level.

“Me and Adam [Craig] are pretty good friends and we just share a love for ’90s country, Adam told Everything Nash. “But our favorite era is ’96 through ’99 era, of like Tim McGraw –– that kind of sound. And I remember when we got in that day and we were just kind of playing the chord progression, it felt so vintage. We were kind of joking, ‘Man, like this feels like a McGraw Everywhere album kind of vibe. And I had had the title, ‘Make Em Wanna Change’ in my phone, and we started writing it.

“It was inspired by a past relationship,” he continued. “Most people when they hear the song, they may think of it as someone that you’re currently with that inspires you. But for my case, it was sort of a past relationship. That’s what challenged me to be a better person. The relationship didn’t work out. We wrote it in the end of summer last year.”

Adam is used to writing songs for other artists, but he knew in his heart that “Make Em Wanna Change” was something he needed to keep for himself.

“I started to tease it a little bit over the last year,” Adam revealed. “I’ve started to really listen to my fans and some of my favorites. I will tease a verse and chorus on social media. And the minute I teased the song, I got flooded with comments of, ‘You have to release this.’ And so I started to really take that into account. I want to release stuff that my fans want to hear.

“All the songs I wrote, and they’re all an extension of me,” he added. “I started narrowing it down, and it just seemed to be the one that everyone sort of raised their hand, so here we are. We’ll put it out for them.”

Adam has already gotten advice from several of his artist friends, including Cole and Dustin, on how to navigate his career as he pursues both being a songwriter and a singer.

“I moved to Nashville to be an artist, and songwriting was just sort of my way to get my foot in the door,” Adam acknowledged. “Cole was one of the very first people that I ever met when I moved to town. I watched his career grow from being a songwriter to an artist and, and other guys, like Thomas Rhett. There’s so many other people through the years that were songwriters and then became an artist. That was, I felt like the best path for me, because I was having such success in the songwriting world.”

Adam was confident in his path, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a bit afraid to make the leap from being just a songwriter to being an artist as well, which is why he still relies on them for support.

“It was a little scary, in the fact that I felt like I knew how to write songs for Luke Bryan and Dierks Bentley and Cole and Dustin and all these people that I have cuts for,” Adam said. “I’ll take their opinions into consideration. I don’t know if we’ve ever had any conversations of, ‘Hey, do this or do that.’ But I definitely, I remember for the very first single I put out, ‘Nothing to Do But Drink,’ they were big supporters of that song. I’ve always sort of looked to them and played them songs and got their opinions.

“I think sometimes your friends and your buddies, your closest people know you better than sometimes you may think you know yourself,” he remarked. “Sometimes it’s good to get their opinion.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Adkins Publicity / Ford Fairchild