The long, arduous wait for new music from Hayes Carll appears to be coming to a close. After an extended pause between 2011’s KMAG YOYO, Carll and Thirty Tigers announced a partnership in May of 2014, with a new album set to be released in “early 2015.” Even at that point, the wait of some eight or nine months seemed like it would take forever. Then early 2015 came and passed, and now mere weeks from the end of the year, still no new Hayes.

But that all might change on April 8th, 2016. In response to a fan’s inquiry about when we may hear new music from the songwriter, April 8th was Carll’s answer. This information jives with the word that he was hoping to begin recording late this last summer, and has been committing extra time to writing.

“I’ve been saying for a couple of years now that I was going to get something out, but for various reasons, it just hasn’t happened. But I mean it this time,” Carll told The Marquee back in June. “I’ve always been a slow writer. I’m not terribly prolific, but it works for me. It’s a combination of a lot of things on this one that made the time not work as originally intended, but it’s all going to come together.”

About the music we might expect from the currently-unnamed article, “In the past I tried to hide what I was really trying to say to not really be that transparent about what was going on in my mind and my life and I kind of camouflaged it in humor or cleverness, which works in certain ways,” he said. “But I feel like making some personal music right now and that starts with the writing, and that’s been the focal point just trying to get out what I want to say in the most honest way, and letting that be the foundation and seeing what happens musically after that.”

KMAG YOYO was released through Lost Highway Records, as was Carll’s 2008 release Trouble in Mind. Both albums won the songwriter critical praise and solid commercial success, and Carll is now considered one of the mainstays of country/Americana circuit.

Hayes is the rare artist that can make you laugh out loud, break your heart or turn a phrase that makes you shake your head in utter joy,” Thirty Tigers President David Macias said at the time the deal with Hayes was originally announced. “We feel proud that we get to go fight for him.”