the zac brown band announced on january 12, 2015, that it had finalized a four-way strategic partnership involving the southern ground artists record label, big machine label group, republic records, and john varvatos records for the release of its fourth studio album. the terms of the deal state that the zac brown band will work with big machine label group for marketing and distribution, while southern ground artists will work on radio promotion, republic will provide support in the area of non-country radio formats and international promotion, and varvatos will oversee branding and styling. brown stated in a press release: