I don't know about one moment that has pivoted my career. I do know that one thing that hit me and made me take a few steps back was a year at Steamboat.

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.

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.

Once we get out on the road, my tour manager who is also my guitar player does a great job of taking weight off of my shoulders where I can just focus on playing the shows.About two hours before every show, the pacing starts and the anticipation builds. I prepare for it just like I would when I used ride bulls, slap yourself in the face, wake yourself up and get your heart going.

Pushing myself against my own will really, because some of this stuff is hard. I don't consider myself to be a great guitar player, so pushing myself as a guitar player or pushing myself as a singer, as a performer, and just riding that fine line between being so hard on yourself that it's counter-productive and being so hard on yourself that nothing is ever good enough is what drives me.

I don't like reality TV as far as it being scripted and not being true reality.

When you're in a room with a guy who has a vision like that, it's just one of those things where you close your eyes and just see that vision - then you just go with it. The guys that I write with are so incredible, just like my producer Trent Willmon, those guys know how to bring things out of me - especially things that I maybe didn't even know that I had.