Deana Carter does music her way  

Carter's second album "Everything's Going to Be Alright" followed in 1998. What did not follow were any hits.

Carter seems to harbor no regrets about the album. "It sold almost a million records. That was what pushed us up close to 6 million. It helped me live and eat and pay my mortgage. It was a bummer that it didn't sell 10 million. At the same time, the face of music had changed. We had different faces and a different mood. You have to be willing to go with the flow. I didn't take it personally."

But once again Carter minces no words about Capitol.

When asked if the label could have done more to make the soph disc a hit, Carter says, "Oh definitely."

"Buy me advertising time outside of 2-4 a.m. It was a real vindictive kind of situation. Hey, I don't have to worry about that any more."

"To them, I was just a phenomenon that just happened."

Two years ago, Carter released a Christmas album she did with her father, which Rounder distributed.

While without a real record label home Carter also had problems on the personal side.

After six years of marriage to fellow musician DiCroce, they split.

"Obviously, it's going to have a big effect on it," Carter says of the divorce's impact on her music. "What I'm proud of on this record is going through this adversity. It's positive. It's a very comedic hooky sarcasm to the way I live my life. That's the way I live. I take it with a grain of salt. I get upset and then I laugh at it."

"This is a bummer, but at the same time, I was able to write about it," Carter says.

"Me and Tequila" makes references to her marriage. "Here you are divorced, and you could consider dating your husband again," she says. "I'm sure every song has some kind of undertone of what I was going through with Chris. It was my life."

"It's liberating is what it is for me. It makes you face your choices. When you have a good feeling for the outcome of those choices, you go 'okay, I'm cool. I'm on the right track.' It depends where you land. The song is where you landed because it's your perspective on the situation."

And Carter seems to have gained her perspective back about music and the marketplace.

"This album was started with the mindset that I'm just going to write with my life, my heart, my experience. I didn't want another record deal. (I thought) I'm going to go on the Internet and put out my own record. I wasn't going to do another record deal if it's gong to compromise my artistic integrity. I was prepared to go back to bartending and go on the Internet. I was already prepared to live life like that. I wasn't looking at a huge marketing plan."