Jack Ingram is touring with Martina McBride.

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Jack Ingram's three kids, ages 2, 4 and 6, and an 8-year-old niece darted in and out of the room during a phone interview from his home in Austin, Texas, last Wednesday.

"I'm not sure where I work harder, when I'm at home or when I'm on the road. I gotta get on the road to get a little rest," he quipped as one kid squawked and another squealed.

Kids running circles around him is the nearest the Texas native comes to calm these days.

The music career he's nurtured for a dozen years in Texas honky-tonks, bars and now arenas has taken a major turn into the mainstream.

The Academy of Country Music's reigning top new male vocalist is touring again with Martina McBride. He opened for her on the winter leg and will finish out the run in October. The tour stops Friday at Cricket Wireless Pavilion in Phoenix.

"I call it the 'Prove Your Love Tour.' We played the Northeast and the upper Midwest in January and February. Now we're playing the Northwest and Southwest and Texas in the summer," said Ingram, 37.

Are you happy with where you are in your career?

"Yes, I am. I am very comfortable in my skin. My world is moving at a very fast pace right now, and I'm not sure that I would be making the same decisions I am now as I would have at 25 years old."

"And the whole time I was struggling to get national recognition, I was making records I believed in, and I was building an audience. Certainly, looking back, do I wish it would have happened faster? Sure, why not?"

"It took me a while to get this kind of recognition in my career and get these kinds of tours. But now that I'm here, I feel like I kind of have a full arsenal of experience. So when it's time for me to tell a story or play in front of a listening crowd, which Martina's is, it's just second nature; I've done it a thousand times. I come from the bars and honky-tonks, but I also come from a long line of storytellers."

"It should come out either the end of this year or the first quarter of '09. The material is a bit more plain-spoken. Just trying to get through all the noise out there.

"It's a continuation of what I've always been trying to do, but maybe I'm getting better at it. Instead of just writing words and writing things that rhyme, I feel like I'm a bit more aimed at talking to a single person. That single person is an audience. It's a loud world out here, and I'm always looking for more intimacy."

"Not necessarily to quiet the whole world. Have you ever had a conversation where you're talking in each other's ear? That's what I want to do. I don't want to stop the party, don't get me wrong. I want to be part of the party. I enjoy that aspect of it; I like that it's loud out here. But I just feel like I have my hand on the back of someone's neck and I'm whispering something in their ear amid all this noise and we're creating this connection. I know that might sound a little out there, but I feel like that's where I'm getting at with this new record."