This is real, this is your life in a song...this is country music.

Playing live is about going for it .. it's about bringing it ... you should see a bunch of people trying out stuff, actually performing, instead of learning the record and recreating it note for note. I can't play the show the same way every night .. I really need to be in a creative environment, every night or I'll go nuts ... my manager accuses me of singing just long enough to get me to my next guitar solo - which is true.

I have a to-do list and I have a farm I care for, and things I like to do for fun - going to movies and all that stuff. It's a painfully normal life!

I changed my mindset and figured, Why not try to be really entertaining instrumentally?

If you're really on top, you probably didn't do that great, 'cause you have to water it down a bit for it to get that mass appeal

When a single mom goes out on a date with somebody new. It always winds up feeling more like a job interview.

I try to write like the writers I admire - I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase... So Im always looking for that angle in my own work.