Calling his third Warner Records full-length No Brakes wasn’t empty hyperbole. It’s not even a nod to the pace the swagger forward songwriter/breakout star has been living at since his “Ride the Lightning” blew up and hit 600 million global streams. Having stacked the career-igniting 717 Tapes: The Album, Pretty Little Poison, Relapse and Relapse, Lies & Betrayal after the self-released influence-honoring Acoustic Covers, an album called No Brakes seems inevitable.

But it’s not what you think. 

“Mom always said I was born on the wild side, an adrenalin junkie running out the door at 4 (years old) in my cowboy boots,” Zeiders explains. “She was worried my grandfather’d run me over with the heavy machinery, because all I wanted was to be with him outside. “My grandfather worked three jobs: he was out on the road, a mechanic working in the garage, then helping people with things that needed to be fixed. When you don’t have a lot, there’s always things to be fixed. His hands were always dirty, but he took us out to the races; holding me up at that quarter mile track in Duncannon…”

Zeiders pauses, collecting the memories. “He was known for street racing, then my Mom and her sisters were tomboys. They all drove Mustangs, and because Grandpa worked on cars, there was always a little extra under the hood. Mom’d street race against the guys. So, it’s in my heart: go-karts, dirt bikes, whatever. Since I was a kid, I love me some speed.”

That forward-thrusting reality is all over No Brakes, the 12 song cycle that grapples with love, wreckage, betrayal and keeping the faith, all while chasing a dream that moves at the speed of sound. Having toured the world for a second time, selling out Hershey, PA’s GIANT Center Arena for a hometown homecoming show and merging his distinct blend of emo/’90s alt/roots/country into songs that scrape the truth from the experiences of coming into one’s own in the 2020s, Zeiders – signed by Warner Records Group CEO and Co-Chairman Aaron Bay-Schuck, the man who also signed and championed Zach Bryan -- is wiser, but still willing.

It's all over the smash “Drinking Game,” measuring the can’t-quit-it pull of a bad relationship against surging build that descends into the raw confession of watching in “Looks Good On You” that keeps breaking in waves of recognizing she’s moved on, which also tempers the electric guitar lashing “Bittersweet.” And then there’s the noir Western opener “Ruin A Good Thing” that reckons with the expiration date on Zeiders’ romances.

Even the power-pop rush of “Overrated,” another song of not being able to quit a stormy relationship that should be in the rearview, lands. Feels good, the way most toxic connections do. Having watched enough relationships fall apart, the kid who once covered Tyler Childers, Koe Wetzel, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Afroman or Jason Isbell  has come into his own by facing the reality that music extracts total commitment. That passion makes No Brakes compelling.

“Life is inevitable,” he concedes. “Good things, bad things, it’s all coming at you – and you have to power on. There’s not really a choice, but why would you want one? That’s why the idea, all gas, no brakes really seemed like the right name for this album.” From the gospel harmonies, the acoustic guitar notes and steel guitar licks snaking through “No Brakes” opening verse to the towering chorus, this is a desperadoes’ anthem and a stoic’s embrace of getting the job done. Like the Outlaw movement of the ‘70s, as well as classic Westerns, there’s a heroism to genuinely accepting one’s life on its own terms.

There’s also an intentionality to No Brakes that supersedes all Zeiders’ previous efforts. Rather than writing without focus, just letting the songs fall where they did, the young man from Perry County, PA identified two producers – Evan Blair and Ben Johnson – he wanted to work with; found common time and let them call together potential co-writers for writing camps. In addition to 4-time BMI Songwriter of the Year Ross Copperman, who’s been part of Zeiders’ previous two albums, he was also finally able to collaborate with in-demand Noah Kahan/Lana Del Ray producer/writer Gabe Simon on “Ruin A Good Thing.”

“I’d gotten done with the arena tour, Canada, my hometown. I wanted to work on new music as a whole thing,” he says. “Evan Blair’s got a strong sense of early 2000s’ punk and alt-rock. His vocals really stand out when you listen to the records he’s made, while Ben Johnson and I worked together on a song and he understood some of the different pockets I wanted to pursue. “We did something I’d never done (with each): two days, twelve hours, A list songwriters and a whole lot of focus. Ben and Evan are work horses; they understood what my life was, what wasn’t working personally – and over those days, we poured all of it into these songs. Totally different way, but you can hear it in the tracks.”

There’s an urgency that’s undeniable. The barbed wire guitars twist around the minor keyed melody of “Souvenirs,” an angst forward ballad, while the piano-driven “Mine” turns the denial of missing the one who’s gone into a vocal tour du force. “This (process)  really brought the songs to me,” he marvels. “All the living compounds when we’re all in one place, working on these songs pulled out of my life at the same time. It’s braver, too. The process really opened me up personally, taking an even closer look inside.  “I was never really the guy sowing his wild oats, but life happens. There’s a lot of getting in and out of relationships, which is more tangled. A self-awareness comes with that. Again, a car reference: under the hood, there really is a lot going on.”

It’s also not all doom and gloom. The Blink-182-feeling “My Eyes” tries to tell a young woman who’s flailing how special she is, while the brightly acoustic “Days Of My Life” considers the way one’s best days can be recognized while you’re in the middle of them that’s equal parts Edwin McCain and ‘70s country. “I can see the damage someone’s been through, but that’s not the end of the story,” he starts. “With ‘My Eyes,’ it’s admitting the damage the other person’s been through, they’ve caused, we’ve caused each other, but trying to get them to see what things could be. It’s up to the other person, but you want them to see what you see.

“That self-reflective piece (of these songs) is hitting me harder. I’m 27, and this is a selfish season of my life. I have this old soul, then you mix it with this lifestyle – and  going from signing a record deal at 21 and what it takes to do this, you realize there’s work to be done.”

An avowed Christian, baptized last November, Zeiders realizes he’s walking a line. He understands all things have a season, but truth-telling is always necessary. “My North Star is knowing where my faith is, that’s always what I’ve been seeking after. I’ve always wanted to be a husband and a father, but it needs to be when the time is right – not just because I want it.” “You Turn,” lush with a glimmer of California country-rock acoustic guitar and thick harmonies on the corners, suggests the path may not be fully in Zeiders’ hands. In that “you know when you know” ethos, patience and trust are the tools that will bring you to the moment that matters. Until then, it’s the highway and the music, the shows and the songs.

That willingness to surrender a more divine plan makes the album closing “Find One” – written and recorded on his actual tour bus, parked somewhere out on tour – more of a prayer to what can be, not a defeatist embrace of what can’t. More subdued, even rambling, that lack of exacting perfection adds a patina of reality to the final track. “Coming from this self-reflective place in my life, from writing all these songs, this felt right. It’s a really good picture of my life, what I want to find and how it actually is. No brakes, pedal down, pushing forward, that’s pretty much the deal. So let’s really show people how it is.”