Edwin McCain Reveals His Unexpected 'Side Hustles' in Case Music Career Ever 'Went Away' (Exclusive)

"If you really are trying to make a living and continue to do what you love to do, it shouldn't matter," the singer tells PEOPLE

Warning: This story contains spoilers from the latest episode of The Masked Singer.

For Edwin McCain, performing as Nessy on The Masked Singer season 13 came as somewhat of a relief.

“It’s awesome, because I normally sing with my eyes closed,” McCain, 55, tells PEOPLE. “The other thing is, I didn't have to think about what I was wearing. I didn't have to worry if my hair was all mussed up or anything. It was just, jump in this costume and sing through the screen. It was fun.”

Unfortunately, the fun came to an end for McCain on Wednesday, April 23, when he unmasked on The Masked Singer’s Soundtrack of My Life Night after performing “A Million Reasons” by Lady Gaga. Host Nick Cannon revealed that McCain got eliminated following the closest vote in Masked Singer history, with less than a 1% difference between the contestants.

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“There was so much talent on the show,” the “I’ll Be” singer says. “It is really an honor to be in the conversation, especially at this point in my career.”

Boogie Woogie, Coral, Mad Scientist Monster and Pearl will continue the race for the Golden Mask trophy, but Edwin says he felt “thrilled” just to make it to the top five. “It was such a different experience,” the father of three says. “I had some high points along the way, and this is definitely going to be in its own category. It really stands alone in all of my musical journey.”

McCain weighs in on his daughter Tiller calling him “expert-level cringe” on the show, the secret to his 25-year marriage with wife Christy and who pushed him to release his latest album Lucky, which marks his first collection of new music since 2011.

Your daughter appeared in your clue package during your final episode, but who else knew you were doing The Masked Singer?

EDWIN MCCAIN: No one knew, because I was told not to tell anyone. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Your daughter was sweet, but she did say your old music videos were cringey. Do your kids think it’s at least somewhat cool that you’re a famous musician?

MCCAIN: I've done my job as a parent to be the most embarrassing part of their life. I think that's our goal as parents. They shouldn't like my music. They shouldn't like anything that I do. They need to go out into the world and do their own thing, and I feel like I've accomplished that task.

But I'll say this, my middle son, when he was in third grade, they were doing What's Your Dad Do? And he told his class that I run a forklift at a warehouse, because we have a forklift at our warehouse where we keep all our stuff. He's seen me run the forklift, and he's also seen me play gigs. But in his little mind, there's no way that playing music is an actual job. So he decided that my job is running a forklift at a warehouse. I thought that was hilarious.

Well, to an extent, you do work the forklift at a warehouse.

MCCAIN: They've seen me do a lot of other jobs, too. I was running a land-clearing business and running an excavator and doing all this other stuff on the side. I've had side hustles this entire time during my career, because I never wanted to get caught out if it somehow just went away. And my wife always gives me a hard time. She goes, "You going to give me that speech? You 'don't know how much longer this is going to last?'" I'm 35 years into my career!

What does it meant to you to still be doing this after more than three decades?

MCCAIN: I'm so grateful to had it last as long as it has. And I think part of it is the fact that we've just been out here playing shows, and I've never really suffered from what I call gig snobbery. There are a lot of artists that go out there, they achieve a certain level, then for some reason in their mind, "Well, I've gotten to this level, and I play this size venues. I can't go back and play the smaller venues." I always challenge that by saying, "Why not? Why wouldn't you?"

I understand the financial ramifications, but if you really are trying to make a living and continue to do what you love to do, it shouldn't matter. We've always stuck to that mantra, and I think that's why we're still here. And you only get to be new once.

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How do you feel about “I’ll Be” still being such a cornerstone of your career 27 years later?

MCCAIN: That song's a miracle, really. It's such an incredible thing to have happened. The timing of that song was perfect, and just the fact that it's still going strong almost 30 years later is really, as a songwriter, as a singer, you can only be that lucky to have a song. That song's sort of been my ticket to Planet Earth. I can basically go anywhere and people are like, "Hey, let's go hear that guy that sings that song." And then now I have about an hour-and-a-half to convince him of all this other music. I have a lot of reverence for it, because it has done so much for so many. I honor that song every night when I play it. My life would be considerably different without that song.

You talked in one of your earlier clue packages on the show about taking some time off to focus on family. Why was that important to you?

MCCAIN: I have this friend of mine — he is my oldest non-related friend — and when I adopted my first son, he and I used to play a lot of golf together. And he goes, "Hey, man, don't worry about that golf course. It'll always be there. While your kids are little, stay home with them." And I thought, "Yeah, that's a really great piece of advice." And I kind of quit playing golf. Then I started thinking about it. I was like, "You know what else will always be there, is that road." So I dialed down. At the time, we were probably playing about 150 shows a year, so I dialed it down to about 50 to 70, and focused on being home more and being able to be part of my kids' lives as they were growing up.

Everybody says this, but it's astonishing how fast the first 15 years goes by. It goes by in a blink. And so that was my point. I wanted to be able to be present and be a part of their lives and get to experience all the milestones. I was still playing shows, but I wasn't out there pushing as hard as you have to to maintain a really outwardly visible career.

What made you decide to ramp things back up in your career? You put out a new album in February, you did The Masked Singer and you’re touring with Train this summer.

MCCAIN: It's weird now, because I guess 15 years later you show back up — we're on this show, we're doing all this — and people are like, "Wow, where have you been?" To the general public, it was like I was in the witness protection program. I didn't feel like I had been gone, but I guess to the industry I was MIA. Part of it was my friend [country singer] Lee Brice was hounding me to make a record. I was like, "All right. Well, if I make a record, you might as well go ahead and do this." That was part of the plan of showing my kids, "Okay, well, if you really do this, this is kind of what it takes." They're teenagers, so I wanted them to see effort without regard to outcome, because you're just not always going to be able to chart the success that you are aiming for. But that doesn't matter. You still try as hard as you can.

I wanted them to have that memory of seeing me do this at a high level. And it's fun for them to come out. They came out for some of the Hootie [& the Blowfish] tour with Collective Soul last year, and they'll come out for some of the Train tour. Well, my daughter will. My sons don't really care much about it. My daughter likes being on the road. She's a great traveler.

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You mentioned on the show keeping your private life private. Is that how you’ve managed to achieve 25 years of marriage with your wife Christy?

MCCAIN: Yeah, that, and when she and I first started dating, she was like, "If this is your circus, I don't want to have anything to do with it. Just keep me out of it." She's been real clear about that. She stays out of the mix by design. I've seen some relationships that are very integrated in the music business, but that wouldn't work for us. And admittedly, she's a horse girl, so she's got her own thing. That was one of the things that I admired about her when we first started going out, because she has her own life and she doesn't need to focus on me at all. She's got plenty of things to do.

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The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.