Hoge wasn’t planning to write My American Dream, or at least so soon after his last album.

Everything changed, though, as he watched the implications of a Trump presidency reverberate even more potently and quickly than he expected — and angrily tried to digest the shallow “thoughts and prayers” continuously offered after mass shootings, including for the 58 concertgoers murdered at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas. Living in Nashville, he paid particular attention to how the country music community essentially refused to support a public discussion about gun culture and gun safety even after a tragedy hit so close to home.

—
Rolling Stone