After a successful summer tour, Hoover country musician Steven Padilla is taking a break to get a few things done: he needs to organize his fall shows, find a label for his new album, get married and, if he has time, come into his own as an artist.   After all, it has been on the to-do list for ten years. Padilla is as good on the guitar as he is at the mic and it hasn't been hard for him to find work. But so far his original offerings have been limited to a four-song EP and what he has managed to slip in on stage between covers of bigger names, when the venues would let him.   But now, outfitted with a growing fanbase, a well-developed marketing platform and 11 of his own songs fresh from the studio, Steven Padilla is ready to start carving out a place in Southern country.   "I didn't feel like I was where I needed to be with my sound and my writing," he said. "As an artist you're constantly searching for who you are as a writer and as a performer, and I've finally figured that out."   But while Padilla's recordings are new, not all of the songs are. His album "Never Happens Again Like This," which he plans to release next year, is a decade-long narrative of writing, rewriting, tweaking, putting down and picking up again that began his fist days of learning to play guitar in rural Alabama.   "As an artist, I think everything that happens to you in your life make it into your music. Everything I am comes from the state of Alabama. It's who I am."   His songs are mostly about growing up in his home town of Demopolis, where, as Padilla describes, "Sometimes the only thing to do is drive around back roads and look for stuff to do."   That was the inspiration for "Old Dirt Road," a song about falling in love for the first time.  Another, "Sixteen in a Small Town," is a portrait of backyard football, church picnics, duck hunting, bottle rockets bonfires and the simple act of being young.   Padilla wrote a newer song, "She Won't be Lonely," as a farewell to all of his past relationships, and finished it when he got engaged.   His fiancée Amanda Martin fell for Padilla because the man was as genuine as his music. It's a romantic story, she agreed, but also invaluable from a marketing perspective.   "He's an everyman," Martin said. "He sees people and knows the way they feel, and people feel that, too."   Martin, originally from Oklahoma, has traveled the country as an orthopedic surgeon, taking her fiancées music with her. In fact, she said, he gained what could be his largest following outside Alabama when she introduced his music to urban yankees of New Jersey and New York.   But for now, Padilla is focusing on his own state, which is a hard enough scene to break into. He said the bars, frat houses and country clubs would rather pay for covers of popular mainstays than try out a new artist.   "Everybody's just looking to party and have a good time," he said. "It's hard to get into places to play your original music."   But Padilla is confident that he can make a name for his voice, one Facebook like and Twitter follower at a time. He plans to release his album next year, and expects to have gained enough of a presence by then to release it himself if he can't find a label.   But for now, he's thinking about this fall, and finding stages for his own music. He doesn't plan on performing outside of Alabama for a while, but he doesn't see why he couldn't someday.   After all, Padilla said, "There are small towns everywhere."