What do Freedy Johnston, Mates of State and Chuck Mead have in common? They all loved Lawrence, but they had to leave it to advance their music careers.

For Mead, a move to Nashville turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. His hillbilly outfit BR549 signed to Arista Records in 1995 and spent the next decade touring the world. Following that group’s 2006 dissolution, Mead took up residence as a songwriter for a Nashville publishing house and worked as the music director for the Chicago-based musical “Million Dollar Quartet.”

He returned to the studio last year to cut a record with Grammy-winning producer Ray Kennedy and emerged with “Journeyman’s Wager” — an 11-song collection that marks his most diverse batch of songs to date. The new album was released last week.

Mead caught up with us from the road on his nationwide tour, which stops at The Bottleneck this weekend.

No-fi highlights from the podcast

lawrence.com: You grew up in Lawrence…

I was a townie. I went to grade school and junior high and high school (in Lawrence) and I went to college for about 25 minutes. … My heart wasn’t in it; (music) is what I was meant to do. Luckily I have very supportive parents and my wife is very supportive of me too.

How many years did you spend playing music in Lawrence before you went to Nashville?

My whole life, basically. When I was 12, I started playing in my parent’s country band, so I was always playing at the Elks Lodge and Knights of Columbus and all over southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas. I always liked The Beatles and Hank Williams and Carl Perkins and Elvis, but when the new music came out it was really exciting. I’m of the years of the last bastion of good AM radio — the ’70s — where you could listen to The Spinners, Chicago and Waylon Jennings on the same station. … When FM radio came into vogue, (I thought) Fleetwood Mac was ok but I really hated Foreigner and Journey and all that shit…

I remember a great show at Hoch Auditorium with Lou Reed and Ian Dury and the Blockheads and XTC at the Opera House (now Liberty Hall). I saw The Police with like 300 people at the Opera House.

I was in a roots-rock outfit called The Homestead Grays and we traveled all around the region. We did ok and it was fun and everything, but my heart was in hillbilly music. … We’d travel through Nashville and I’d go, ‘Man, I should move to Nashville.’ There was a cool thing happening at the time in the mid-’80s. Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle and Ricky Skaggs had just come out and it started being a lot less cheesy.

Have you spent much time in Lawrence recently?

Yeah. Lawrence is still the Velvet Gulag. It’s great and it’s still home to me. I was back a couple of weeks ago and I was hanging out at the (Free State) Brewery with a few of my friends and my brother-in-law. It started to look like a tornado and of course because we’re all Kansans, we went outside to look at it. In Tennessee they’ll all scared … One hint of a snowflake and there’s no bread or milk in the f*in’ Kroger. They finally got storm sirens in Nashville about 10 years ago because there was a horrible tornado that ripped right through my neighborhood. I lived all my life in Kansas and didn’t suffer any damage from a tornado until I moved to Tennessee.

What’s the significance of the title of the record?

Mead: Musicians as a whole are journeymen. … They have to go where the work is. Since this is my first solo album, I’m wagering a lot of money on it. I’m going all-in.

Do you feel like there’s more risk involved with releasing a solo album as opposed to a BR549 album?

Absolutely, because this is all me. BR549 is a brand name and Chuck Mead isn’t necessarily. I’m having to kind of start from scratch again. … It’s been three years since I’ve been on the road and the music business has changed in the last three minutes.

What are some of the changes you’ve noticed in the music industry?

There are like two labels and it’s all consolidated. You’re either on a major label or you’re amongst the multitudes of indie artists and that’s what I am now. … It’s a different position for me to be in — I have to use a lot of my right brain and it kind of hurts. … It’s ok, because I have more control of my destiny. I could have gone with another label, but then I’d be an indentured servant. My whole musical past — I don’t even own it. I have songwriting royalties and publishing and all that, but all those recordings by BR549 are owned by BMG/Sony. That was a great tradeoff, but the music business is really different than when we got signed in 1995.

Would you do things differently if you could go back?

No. It enabled me to do what I’m doing right now, so I don’t regret one thing. It’s fabulous that we got to go everywhere in the world because of hillbilly music. Not a lot of people can say that.

You went to Obama’s inauguration?

I sure did. My wife and I went down to Washington D.C. and it was the most amazing thing to see 2 million people smiling all at once. It had to be one of the proudest moments in American history. It’s almost like we graduated junior high after all these years. It sure took awhile, but it sure feels good. Even if people are of a different political ilk, I think we should be incredibly proud of our president. He’s a smart, intelligent, sensitive guy. Plus, the guy can shoot the three. That’s important, especially to Jayhawks.

How’s your game?

My game is pretty damn good. I still play 2-3 times a week when I’m home and I’m the old man in the game. But they still pass it to me because they know I’m from Kansas and I can play some hoops.