John Carter Cash Says He Found His Voice at 53: ‘There’s Just as Much Carter in Me as AC/DC’ (Exclusive)

John Carter Cash is at a place in his life and career where he knows exactly what he wants.

The Grammy Award-winning artist, producer and bearer of the Cash Carter family torch, 55, tells PEOPLE that his newest album, Pineapple John, is a concise reflection of his current headspace recalled through the lens of its titular character, Pineapple John, an imaginary, life-worn singer-songwriter spending his life at sea.

Though its concept is relatively imaginary, Cash says that Pineapple John is “really a personal record,” informed, at least in part, by the times of his life he has spent in Jamaica, which was a second home to his parents, the legendary Johnny Cash and June Carter.

“I grew up with calypso and reggae. We were surrounded by it and actually played it … when I was in Jamaica, when I was in my 20s, and so it’s not foreign to me at all,” the artist notes of the genre overtures that encapsulate his new project.

Across its 15 tracks, Carter Cash weaves the tale of Pineapple John, through airy, beach-ready tunes such as “Sleeping with the Mermaids,” “Soon Come” and its title track, “Pineapple John.”

The artist astutely balances those steel drum-infused beats with a healthy dose of contemplative reflection, evident in tracks such as “Snow on the Sand,” “Beckoning Melody,” and “The Island Fair/Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream/Carry On,” the project’s three-part musical odyssey that closes the album.

Carter Cash adds to his influences for Pineapple John that “the ocean is such a monstrous part of my life. I dream about it. I think about it. I have a boat in Florida. I spend hours a year … hours on hours out on the ocean chasing after those elusive fish. I come from a line of seafarers, my father’s line back there, so it’s in the blood anyway.”

It wasn’t just sunny beaches and shores that inspired the artist on this project; however, there was also a healthy dose of collaborative effort from his close friends and family.

“My compadres, right? I mean, [my son] Jack and I driving around and him beating out rhythms and me coming up with ‘Pineapple John,’ just us being together and being easy,” he shares. “He and I came up with that idea together, and the song was written spontaneously in pieces and just diced together with computers — then we had to get it in time and all this crazy stuff. He was there as my son and as my compadre.”

Carter Cash continues, “And then Joseph, my son, is such an amazing musician, and he plays mandolin and electric guitar and keyboards on the record … I love his work on the keys. It’s just so super cool.”

Though he admits he doesn’t see the latter “quite as much,” he adds that “during this time that I was making the record, he was just very close. And then his best friend, Forrest Cashion, playing the keyboards too, [it] was very close to home.”

Collaborative efforts also came by way of his daughters, in true continuation of the Carter family tradition. “And then AB, my elder daughter, sent me a lyric. She said, ‘Here’s a lyric,’ and then I wrote the melody for ‘Beckoning Melody’ around it. It’s her story, but it fits. To me, it’s a rise in the character. It’s making a choice. It’s him moving forward.”

Even his youngest daughter, Grace, 8, appeared on “The Hole in the Bottom of the Sea,” with her father noting that you can “hear her voice at the end” of the track.

Of course, Carter Cash has to throw kudos to his iconic father as well, for planting the seeds that eventually inspired Pineapple John in him at a young age, and the covers he chose to include in the album.

“There were the songs that I loved, and also to me, they were the songs that he sang in the bar when he got up and played. Those [were] songs of his life,” he shares.

Carter Cash continues, “[The] first time I heard him sing ‘Shame and Scandal,’ we were at a bar in Bimini, and I was 13 years old. He sang that song, and I thought it was autobiographical. I was like, ‘Dad, are you trying to tell me something?’ And so it’s greatly connected with my memory.”

Ultimately, Carter Cash surmises that his family, and their varying musical efforts both alongside him in the studio and through posthumous inspiration, can only be described as “a melting pot.”

“That’s what this album is … me finding the truth of the matter. I think I found my voice at 53 … it’s this album … it’s a melting pot. There’s so much there. There’s just as much Carter family in me as there is AC/DC, and it’s very honest.”

Pineapple John will be available on all major streaming services on Friday, Oct. 10.