Maine singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne has had enough success to not worry about basic living necessities. But he’s not so far away from poverty that he’s forgotten the roughness of a hardscrabble life.

“We didn’t have anything,” he said Thursday on the phone from Boston, where he was preparing for two performances at the Opera House. “A lot of times it was just scary.”

As a child, LaMontagne moved with his family from place to place, finding what living arrangements they could.

When he reflects on the country’s economic situation and what the high prices of just about everything mean for struggling Mainers, he knows one thing for certain: “For me, five or six years ago – not to be too blunt – I’d be completely (expletive).”

By keeping his past circumstances in his mind’s eye, LaMontagne can look at where he is in life today and recognize how lucky he is. He has two albums to his credit and is going to release a third, “Gossip in the Grain,” on Tuesday.

LaMontagne, 35, struggled to get by after high school, working at a Lewiston shoe factory for a while. As he got his music career started, he worked as a carpenter, grabbing whatever jobs he could with contractors.

“I had a lot of chances to quit,” he remarked in his soft voice. “It’s tough to put yourself out there and be rejected time and time again.” But, “I always knew it was worth working for.”

LaMontagne released his first album, “Trouble,” in 2004. It peaked at No. 9 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart and earned him critical accolades and fans. His sophomore album, “Till the Sun Turns Black,” was released in 2006 and reached No. 28 on the Billboard 200 album chart.

The CD was darker than his first, and one he found hard to tour behind. “It was really exhausting,” he said. “I was beginning to feel really disconnected and not like myself.” So after more than a year on the road, he took time off, retreating to an old farm he purchased outside Farmington.

The small cape on the farm was once owned by writer Norman Mailer but had fallen into serious disrepair. With his carpentry background, LaMontagne set about renovating it himself, helping him to decompress. He eventually turned over the work to a local crew. “I needed a break to get grounded and to get perspective, and it worked,” he said.

He began working on his third album earlier this year in England with Ethan Johns, who produced his first two albums.

Early buzz for “Gossip in the Grain” emphasizes how differently LaMontagne set about creating this album, saying he went from working solo to working with a band. LaMontagne downplays that sort of talk, pointing out that he’s always worked with other musicians – they were just session players.

This time around, he recorded with members of his touring band to make it more a “band record,” he said. After recording with the band was done, and he’d had a chance to live with the recorded material for a while, he felt the album wasn’t finished, so he went back to work with Johns. They recorded another song and added a couple of string arrangements. “That seemed to be what it needed, really.”

The end result is an album with both LaMontagne’s trademark soul-touching songs and tracks that allow listeners to get a glimpse of his impish side. The first track, “You Are the Best Thing,” peaked at No. 15 on Billboard’s Triple A Singles chart.

LaMontagne began touring in support of “Gossip in the Grain” on Sept. 30. Currently, no dates are scheduled for Maine, but he hopes to play here soon.