Pour me something tall and strong, make it a Hurricane before I go insane. It's only half past twelve but I don't care, it's 5 O'clock somewhere.

I don't like politics, hypocrites, folks with poodles.

You think about people like Hank Williams, who stood on that spot of wood, and Mr. Acuff, and, of course, George Jones. And just about anybody you can think of who has made country music has been on that stage. That's what makes you so nervous - to think about the historical part of the Opry and how it's played such a part in country music.

"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.

Hee Haw was probably my biggest exposure to live music at a young age, because there wasn't any live music around my town and no one in my family played instruments.

I didn't realize until I was older what a huge music fan my daddy really was, and actually that my grandma played banjo at one time, and I didn't even know that until a year or two ago.

I've always said that if you have songs on the radio and get played, you've got to have a tour to support that.