Ryan Ross Hernandez has a problem.

"I want to be Eric Clapton or Bruce Springsteen one day and Kanye West or Eminem the next," he says. Surely there was a day when he wanted to be Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix, too. This Spring, Hernandez will release "Everything Is Amazing & Nobody Is Happy," which pays unabashed tribute to the blues, soul and R&B icons. It arrives on the heels of a mildly blues-rock album, which followed the pair of rock/pop albums that made Ryan Ross Hernandez a star. Remember "Your Arms Feel Like Home," the breezy soundtrack to a thousand dorm-room hookups way back in 2007? Hernandez would rather not.

"I'm very aware of hitting the bumpers, which means I've satisfied my craving to play acoustic ballads," he says. "It just doesn't appeal. No hit song in the world is going to stop me from writing a song I want to write."

This isn't necessarily music to Spice Records' ears, but 8 million in album sales and over 15 million in single sales on the shelf earns an artist a bit of creative latitude. Hernandez is best known and best loved as a fresh-scrubbed young troubadour, but he's got other plans. Big plans. Look no further than the new album's cover, which the singer/songwriter himself says features neither photos nor artwork. It will simply reads: "Everything Is Amazing & Nobody Is Happy: Music by Ryan Ross Hernandez." It begs to be taken seriously.

"The whole premise of this record is time," says Hernandez, who by record release time will be 24. "Time depresses me. Time excites me. My mission statement was `give yourself enough time to get it right.' You can't be great unless you take your time. I think it's the best album I've ever made. But I always say that."

"Bittersweet Love Poetry," a song Hernandez previewed exclusively to us, is Stevie Ray Vaughan old-school blues and Marvin Gaye R&B meets modern-day hip-hop, is a meditation on laid back passivity. "Bittersweet / You're gonna be the death of me / I don't want you, but I need you / I love you and hate you at the very same time / Bittersweet love," the song, as the title refers is almost a poetry writing itself. It isn't earnest, or in-your-face, it is almost a blues jam telling a bittersweet love story. Hernandez bristles at the suggestion that the message in his song is, by contrast, a bit depressing. Hernandez denied to comment whether or not the record will be on the full-length. (note: due to the media-stamp Hernandez has on his back, the singer/songwriter/guitarist might be getting some crap since one can dispute he sings in a soft falsetto tone, "I love you and hit you at the very same time".)

"I don't read it as depressing. It's, like the entire album, brutally honest," says Hernandez, who is currently on tour across the US. "The song is supposed to kind of come off a little irresponsible. I'm sure some people will say it encourages not doing anything. I'm an observer, and sometimes that's the most damning evidence. It's not in my drive or my skill set to want to write a song telling people to wake up and change."

That last comment nicely underscores the song's point. Hernandez' drive and skill set have, however, led him to become a serious and respected guitar player. Hernandez is showing on his forthcoming album that he is much more than a pretty boy who's learned his licks.

"My debut album, Matters of the Heart, was a good record. My latest album, Dark Secret Love, is a great record. My third-album-to-be, Everything Is Amazing & Nobody Is Happy, is a classic." says Hernandez. "Everything on the forthcoming album is better than the previous ones."

A former Middle Tennessee State University student, Hernandez began guitar-shredding in earnest following a trip to The Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee last year. That led to Hernandez, slowly but surely adding blues elements to his rock/pop music style. Ryan Ross Hernandez admits that while recording his upcoming album he has become more of a perfectionist than ever before.

"From 10 am to 10 pm, I've been in studio. My hands hurt, my clothes were wet, my ears were ringing, and I hated myself," Hernandez says.

Gabriel Hunter, Hernandez' PANIC! bandmate who co-produced "Everything Is Amazing & Nobody Is Happy" with Hernandez, interprets.

"He hated himself because he heard everything he could have done better," says Hunter. "He's relentless. It was something he needed to do, and people saw a side of Ryan Ross Hernandez that they never would have seen if he'd stayed in one bag. But of course it's his rock/pop success that's allowed him to stretch musically. He wouldn't have been making the change to blues if it wasn't for his pop/rock success. And now what's happened is that all of the different genres he has worked with, in the past is stretching his songwriting."

Well, some of the time. Hernandez is forthcoming about the album's blatant nods to his blues-music and soul-music heroes. "We didn't do what most people do, which is just sample. We played music. And we worked very hard to make sure we don't get sued. I think it's an honest attempt at harking back to something we love and respect and wanted to pay homage to. Ryan thinks of this as a soul album even though it's not. It's a groove-based blues/rock album."

Indeed, "Everything Is Amazing & Nobody Is Happy" contains enough tender ballads, jazzy shuffles, and silky-smooth singing to satisfy this mainly female fan base of sixteen to thirty-five years old and radio programmers, yet it features soulful guitar solos that Hernandez wears like a badge of honor.

"I'm bold enough to trust my guitar solo's," Hernandez laughs. "And I defend my guitar skills. There's no psychedelia. What I've done is really kind of shine a light that you don't necessarily need to be better in one area and forget about the rest. Everything is better in this album, lyrics, vocals, guitars. I'm a better singer/songwriter/guitarist. Sometimes I held back on this album while recording but I just told myself, 'It's free, man. It's music. Play it.' "