I think that no matter what you do, whether you rodeo, whether you work in an office, you work in the oilfield or you play music for a living, eventually if you do enough of it, the devil in the back of your head tries to turn it into work. You have to find new ways to make it new and make it exciting to keep that drive there.

I don't know that we're beating anyone at their own game. I just think that we tried to include a lot of Nashville entities from the very beginning, just to see if that would work. We were trying to take my music to a different level and some people wanted me to change my style and my image, obviously that's not going to happen so we simply thanked those people for their time.

If you're true to yourself, it doesn't matter where you record your music or where you say you're from. I am an artist from Texas, proud to be from Texas, but I play my own kind of music, my brand of country music.

I absolutely believe that what you sing and how you act when you're in this position, should be the definition of who you are and where your heart and character stands.

I really think it's just the people you put around you. For instance, you mentioned "Kiss Goodbye," that was a song that was brought to me by Dan Couch and Dale Oliver. They had already started writing it without. They had put together this whole demo of music with no lyrics.

I hate to say stuff like this because everyone dreams about playing The Opry, everyone dreams about playing Gruene Hall, but I've always tried to not concentrate too hard on where I want to go because I know if I put too much stock into it, it would be pretty disappointing if I never got there.

Also, I think I'd like to see more out-of-state shows, man. As bad as I hate to say this, I'm looking forward to playing for nobody. That's what happens when you're a guy like me and you travel out to Sacramento, California.