Brad Paisley has dumped the latest recording technology and packed the band into a barn for some old-school "guerrilla" recording for this new album, he tells The Tennessean newspaper.

"So it’s a big experiment," Brad says. "My rule for this record is to leave our comfort zone as musicians and songwriters and production-wise, themes and everything, and think outside the box."

Part of that was using his band instead of studio pros, and making the recording in a farmhouse studio he built on his property.

And none of that Auto-Tune stuff, either.

“My opinion, lately, has been that making it better [with technology] is sometimes making it worse, because the first guy decided they could use Pro Tools and take a bass guitar and a kick drum and make that an immoveable sort of symphonic unit," Brad said.

"Everybody else caught on really quick, and now that’s on every record,” Brad says. “Now, I turn on the radio and hear a lot of things that sound like what I’ve done already. Where do you go from here?”

The album comes out April 9, but the first single, "Southern Comfort Zone," is out now. It went to radio Thursday night (Sept. 21).