While 'Southern rock' is a good catch-all generalization, it's often hard to place Blackberry Smoke into just one genre, and they're OK with that. In fact, a number of rock legends from the South are fans, including Gregg Allman--who sings the group's praises as being "the band that will put Southern Rock back on the map"--and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, who frequently jams onstage with them.

"We never sat down and thought, 'We're a Southern rock band,'" frontman Charlie Starr tells Radio.com over the phone. "We're just a rock & roll band from Georgia. So are R.E.M. They play the kind of music that makes them feel comfortable and so do we. Plus, I have a pretty Southern accent and Michael Stipe doesn't, so the singing comes across in a different way."

"I've always appreciated albums that have a lot to offer lyrically and musically," Starr tells Radio.com, a few days before this week's release of Blackberry Smoke's fourth album, Holding All the Roses. "Nobody wants to buy an album and listen to it and all songs sound the same, that's a bummer. We've always tried to approach an album like an album. Have it be a bit of a roller coaster ride where you have songs with different feel, different subject matter."

Starr says Blackberry Smoke has always made an effort to make a drastically different album than the one they previously released. As a result, Holding All the Roses departs from their 2012 release The Whippoorwill. Produced by Brendan O'Brien (whose credits include AC/DC, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young), Starr recalls meeting with him for the first time and talking about the records that they love. After discussing albums like Led Zeppelin III and Aerosmith Rocks as well as those that O'Brien himself had made, the foundation for Holding All the Roses was made.

While the album takes the listener on a journey, it also shows Blackberry Smoke's evolution as a band. This time around, they're using more textures, haunting string features and keyboard interludes unheard of on the band's previous releases. Throughout its 12 tracks, Holding All the Roses has songs about women, the devil, loneliness and seeing a woman in the moon on the fittingly titled, "Woman In the Moon."