With his seventh album dropping later this month, Dierks Bentley lets the curtain fall on life behind the scenes – and PEOPLE has an exclusive peek. 

Cameras followed the country star over the course of two years, documenting Bentley’s goodbye to his father, hello to his son Knox, and preparation for the release of Riser, out Feb. 25th.  

“I want this album to sum up who I am as a guy going through these different changes in life,” Bentley, 38, says. “You lose your dad, get married and have kids, but you’re on the road rocking and acting like you’re 13 years old on stage with a guitar in your hand.” 

In the hour-long documentary, airing Feb. 22nd on CMT, viewers see Bentley eating breakfastwith daughters Evie, 5, and Jordan, 3, at their mini-me sized table, fly his plane to and from shows and witness his anxiety over the fear of missing Knox’s October birth – as it turns out, he made it in plenty of time. 

“Touring musician and family man were never meant to go hand in hand,” he explains in the clip as wife Cassidy is shown waving goodbye. “It’s just two loves of your life pulling at you.” 

The first single off Riser, entitled “I Hold On,” pays tribute to Bentley’s relationship with his father Leon, who died in June 2012. 

“He’s always been my biggest influence and hero,” says Bentley. “[I’m] trying to come out the other side intact and stronger than ever … the kind of person that’s going to always pick themselves back up and pick up the people around them. This is who I want to be.”