I try not to keep my head in the clouds .

When your songs are like your babies, even the one that you know aren't great, you still love.

As far as the persona, I'm true to myself. Not because I'm arrogant, but I'm true to myself because I believe that you have to stand for something. When you start sacrificing that, even if it's just a line in a song or something you say on the mic at a show, or the way you treat someone when you see them out in public, that all reflects on who you are.

There's that area, right there, where you can be too hard on yourself or you need to be really hard on yourself - I'm trying to ride that line by telling myself that I can always write better, sing better, what can we do to make the show more interesting? Pretend that you're the guy who's been in the front row for the last five shows; what would make it new for you?

I just continue to be myself and give this thing over to the good lord, just do my best every night and pretend like it's just any other job.

It's something that Cory Morrow said to me a long time ago - "Don't ever forget why Nashville is Nashville. The Opry is there for a reason. Country music lives there. Don't be bitter. And don't ever treat Texas or Nashville like either one isn't important."

I try to make sure that, when I'm writing, I don't put too much Cody in it. But I don't want to lose it either.