LEWISTON – When the voice of a million ringtones calls you, you take the call. And you believe him when he says, “I’m going to do what I want to do.”

Country singer Trace Adkins – who will perform tonight at Lewiston’s Androscoggin Bank Colisee – aims to break country music’s mold.

The man who had a huge hit with the party song “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” has a new, gentler song on the radio, a plain-talking autobiography in stores and is among the competitors on NBC’s reality series “Celebrity Apprentice.”

“I want to try to continue to grow, get better at my craft and find some new things that I may be able to do pretty well, too,” Adkins said Thursday in a phone interview from Bangor, where he kicked off a winter tour.

That he’s starting the tour here in Maine has the singer wondering if he made his booking agent angry.

“He’s like, ‘OK. All right. You want to do a winter tour? Here you go. Bangor in January!'” Adkins joked. “I’m going to Greenland next. I hear it’s pretty warm there.”

They’d probably know him there, too.

The tall, former oil rigger from Louisiana seems to be getting more famous by the moment. His newest single, “Your Gonna Miss This” is climbing Billboard’s country charts at No. 22.

“I’m on top of the world,” said Adkins, who turned 46 a couple of weeks ago.

He even survived the first three episodes of “Celebrity Apprentice,” the new incarnation of Donald Trump’s show that began airing Thursdays at 9 p.m. this month. Adkins and several other famous folks – rocker Gene Simmons and gymnast Nadia Comeneci were early casualties – are competing in teams to be the best at selling products of Trump’s TV advertisers. The winner’s earnings will go to their favorite charity.

“I really didn’t expect the cutthroat, dog-eat-dog kind of mentality and approach that some people took to it,” he said. “I just couldn’t believe that, man. Being named ‘The Apprentice’ in this show doesn’t mean you’re going to get a job.”

“I wouldn’t go to work for Donald Trump,” he said. “He’s got a lot of money, but he doesn’t have that much. Trust me.”

It’s not entirely true.

On Saturday, Adkins is scheduled to play a show at Trump’s Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.

His deep voice – which has a from-the-bottom-of-the-well quality, even on the phone – seems to be his biggest asset.

Adkins began selling records in 1996. He’d already issued one greatest hits album when he released “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” in 2006.

“It was the biggest song I ever had,” he said. “I suspect that it was a turning point.”

The song, which hit No. 2 on the country charts and broke pop’s top 40, introduced him to audiences that don’t ever listen to country.

“I’ve got hip-hop guys that come up to me and they know that song,” he said. “To sell a million ringtones is something I never even dreamed would happen. I mean, how can you forecast something like that?”

He plans to continue to bend barriers.

“I shamelessly stole that from Ronnie Milsap,” he said. “He’d put some R&B stuff on there or sing a pop tune with the Pointer Sisters, who were very cool back in the day when he did that.

“There was a freedom in the way that he did his music. He wouldn’t let them put him in a box and say this is all you can do. He did whatever he wanted to, and he was criticized roundly for it, and I have, too.

Last fall, he released his autobiography, “A Personal Stand.”

He wrote plainly about his career, a drunken-driving conviction in 2001 and his family life: a difficult divorce, a happy second marriage and his five daughters.

He took on the Trump show because one of his daughters has a food allergy and he hoped to raise awareness.

“Some days were fun,” he said of the program. “There were some trying times.

“There will be a lot of scenes on there where you don’t really see me,” Adkins said. “The reason for that is that I just had to get the hell out of there for a few minutes. I don’t suffer fools. My tolerance for that kind of stuff is not very good. So I would just remove myself from the situation to keep from saying or doing something that would keep me from winning the game.”

He dropped no hints about whether he’ll win.

“I think I was brought on there to be the big, dumb cowboy and just hang around a week or two and that would be the end of it,” he said.

Right now, his focus is on the folks who buy tickets to see him perform, he said.

“Ultimately, it’s not deep or profound or anything like that,” he said. “I simply hope that they leave going, ‘We didn’t waste our money. It was entertaining. It was fun. It was good music.'”

Trace Adkins with Luke Bryan

7:30 tonight

The Androscoggin Bank Colisee, Lewiston

Tickets: $39.75, still available