Singer/songwriter Chris Knight had one ambition when he began work on his fourth album, "Enough Rope." He wanted to write and record a song that would get him the kind of attention from country radio that could possibly translate into legitimate chart success.

"I kind of had the idea of doing something that was gonna be a little bit outreaching to the general public," says Knight from his manager's Nashville office. "You know, give me a little boost, a little bump. Something like a hit song, something that might get played on the radio was the original intent."

It took him exactly one attempt. He hated it, scrapped it and essentially went back to the way he's been making music since his self-titled debut in 1998.

"After the first session, I just said, 'That ain't me. I'm gonna do this the way I want to do it,'" says Knight. "That's what I did for the rest of the record. I'm too close to the music, and I can't record a song I don't like or don't believe myself when I'm singing it. I've found that if I try to do that, it don't work. If I lean toward cutting a song that country radio might be interested in, I don't give a shit about it, and I don't have any faith in it."

If there's a hit on "Enough Rope," it will have to happen organically or not at all. For Knight, the natural method of building his audience, through record sales or live performances, has always been the best way.

"Unless I wrote a really great song that everybody else liked and I liked too - that's the way for me to get there," says Knight. "After I put out the second album ("Pretty Good Guy," 2001), I could tell a big difference. I started headlining then, and I started getting decent crowds, and by the time the next record came out, they were better. After 'The Jealous Kind' (2003) came out, I got another bump then, a lot more people at the shows. I'm hoping to do the same thing this time."

Knight's track record would seem to indicate that he'll experience the same spike as with his previous albums, but there is a difference this time that could serve as a potential complication. Knight's first album was on Decca Nashville, and his next two were for Dualtone; that label distribution gave Knight great exposure for his first three albums. When no label deal was forthcoming for "Enough Rope," Knight decided to self-release, and that could have a big impact on the number of people who hear his album.

The fact is that Knight has worked all of his albums as hard as he possibly could, and he certainly won't shy away from the road on behalf of "Enough Rope."

"There's some places where I've had to go a lot," says Knight. "For instance, Atlanta. I'd go down there, just me and my guitar, and 30 people would show up, but I kept going back. Then it got to where I could go down and take a band and draw a couple hundred people so that's still building, but that's kind of the way I've done it."

The other way Knight has done it in his career is to typically take from two to three years between albums, and the three years since "The Jealous Kind" has been absorbed with either his wife and kids, road work or making "Enough Rope." And, as Knight explains, the gaps between his albums haven't always been entirely his doing.

"Between the first and second albums, I had several record deals that fell through for one reason or another," recalls Knight. "Basically it was because the labels I was getting on were shut down in all that business back then. 'The Jealous Kind' came out probably a year and half, two years after. That was fairly quick. This one has just taken a long time because we took a long time making it. We recorded a little bit here and there, and we shopped to some major labels. Other than them wishing they could sign me, we didn't get anything out of it. So that's where a lot of the time went on this. I've never gotten in a big hurry about that stuff...I wouldn't want to go four years. I've been able to tour on 'The Jealous Kind' for three years, and the numbers at the shows didn't go down. People always seemed glad to see us, and I went to a lot of new places and places I hadn't been to in awhile, so it's worked out fine."

After three albums of acoustic-based songs detailing the often darker side of small town life, Knight has shaken up the status quo on "Enough Rope." The 13 tracks rock a bit harder than his previous output, and the lyrical outlook is slightly less bleak; you'd be hard pressed to find anything as hopeful as "Saved By Love" or as pointed a love song as "Cry Lonely" on Knight's albums before now.

"I always went that (rock) direction as much as I could with the songs," Knight says. "I just had these songs that, to me, seemed like they ought to rock a little more. I'm a rock and roll fan, you know, Southern rock, country rock, and I always was, so I just thought I'd do it this time. The next record will probably be solo acoustic. I don't know."

In the bio that accompanies the new album, Knight claims that he's "not as pissed off as I used to be." While there could be several reasons in Knight's life for that relative contentment, they could all fit under one umbrella.

"Just getting older, probably," says Knight. "There's nothing to get pissed off about, really. It'll shine when it shines. There's all kinds of stuff that still pisses me off, but it's not being pissed off for the sake of being pissed off. So there's nothing that comes to mind right now. I'm okay."

Like most other singer/songwriters as they progress through their lives and careers, the things that inspire Knight to put pen to paper and pick up the guitar have changed over the years.

"When I first started, I had my whole life to write about," says Knight. "I had a real good raising growing up. It was interesting to me, growing up in a real rural area in a big family in a small town. So, I got a lot of inspiration off of that. Now it's a little harder to dig and find those things to write songs about because I don't want to keep rewriting ideas. It's the here and now; I gotta look out the window and pick something to write about. Things that inspire me now are everyday things. And I can write a song around a hook now, which I didn't used to do."

If there's anything that hasn't changed for Knight, it's in the influences that he draws from to create his own songs. When he began playing the guitar as a teenager in tiny Slaughters, Ky., his learning curve was populated with dozens of John Prine songs, and his subsequent discovery of Steve Earle led him to the epiphany that he should write his own material. Those two remain firmly entrenched in Knight's creative soul, but there are plenty of influences rattling around in his attic.

"John Prine was a big influence on me, and that'd be the folk/country thing," says Knight. "For the real country, I listened to Hank Williams when I was a little big kid; my aunt had his records. On the rock side, I keep remembering this stuff I listened to. Prior to 'Hot Legs,' I listened to Rod Stewart's 'Every Picture Tells a Story.' I was like 12 years old, and I remember wearing that record out. It's a real rough rockin' record, and I loved that. I listened to Skynyrd a lot when I was a kid. I don't know if Jackson Browne's influence comes through or not, but I listened to him religiously. And Steve Earle was a big influence in the '80s."

The other influence on Knight is, quite simply, the guitar itself. "I was always fascinated by guitars when I was a little kid," recalls Knight. "My brother brought one home when I was 15, and he worked second shift in the coal mines, and when he was gone, I was home with his guitar. Man, I just ate it up. I'd stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning. My mother drove a school bus, and she'd come back home after running around in the morning, and I'd still be sitting on the couch playing the guitar instead of going to school. I just ate (it) up. I learned a lot of songs and played to friends and family in high school and college, and I always wanted to write, but I couldn't write. Then 1 day, I wrote a song that I'd sing for somebody, and in the next year I wrote 50 or 60 songs."

After high school, Knight enrolled at Western Kentucky University and graduated with an agriculture degree that led him to a five-year position as a land reclamation inspector with his home state. In the meantime, he learned more songs and continued to use his guitar as little more than party entertainment. Hearing Steve Earle helped move him away from that mindset.

"I just told myself, 'I gotta do this now, or I'm probably never gonna do it," says Knight. "I was 30 years old before I went to Nashville. I went and got my foot in the door. Three years after I first come down here, I got a publishing deal, and people told me I needed to make a record because my songs were so edgy and personal - I was getting some cuts, but the songs were better coming out of me. I wasn't married at the time, so I quit my job and came down here. It seemed easy and the most natural thing to take a $12,000 cut in pay and come down here to be a songwriter. It never crossed my mind that it wouldn't work out. I've never hit it big, but I've never quit. And I've never had to take another job other than music."

Perhaps the single most important reason that Knight's music resonates with people who have experienced it is because they sense his connection to real life. Knight is a singer/songwriter and a committed performer, but music is not the sole focus of his life.

He is a dedicated husband and father, an avid hunter and fisherman, and he still lives on property outside of his Kentucky hometown. Even when he invents stories and characters and situations in his songs, they come from real life experiences, and his audience can identify with them because of that reality.

"I'm happy with the way things are because I know if I stay out here, they'll get better."There's been a continual improvement over eight years. I made my first record in '98, and everywhere I go, there's more people coming to the shows, and my name's getting out there more and more. It's not discouraging for me at all. If I wanted to be a country star, I'd have changed my mode of operation a long time ago. If I wanted to do it right now, I would probably reinvent myself. I'd get me a personal trainer, and get me some tight Wrangler jeans and some wife beater shirts and wear a do-rag and start recording different types of songs that they'd play on the radio. Right now, I just want to record the good songs that I write and be appreciated."