I grew up with nothing, so whenever I got to where I could have something I felt like I needed to have everything I couldn't have when I was young.

As long as I'm still able to have a hit on the radio and sell a few albums and some tickets, I don't see that it would be worth retiring.

Probably some of the songs I never even really listened to the lyrics. Half of them I'd hear off the radio and was probably singing the wrong words and didn't even know it.

I mean, my voice has gotten a little deeper sounding as I've gotten older, I think. I noticed that.

I've been a lot of places, and my wife, Denise, she likes a lot of the fancy restaurants. I'm more of a basic eater. I still go into Cracker Barrel. Those are the kind of people who like the kind of music I'm making.

"After 17" is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that's kind of where I'm at in that part of my life. If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you'd say, "Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter," but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn't apply to anybody that has a child.

My mother kept asking me, "When are you going to do a gospel album?" And I've always wanted to do a gospel album. Everybody was going on about it, so mom started hounding me more.