[My grandfather] was very, very fortunate that he was never trapped in a mining cave-in. But he lost his brother in a mining disaster on a shift that he wasn't working. And he was in a collapse where his brother-in-law was killed very near him in the same section.

I was very fortunate in having David Fincher, the director come to me. Now I've seen the finished product, I feel that every bit of the nine months we spent on the film was worth it.

I guess I stayed with the faith. I mean, organized religion is not something that I've maintained a direct connection to in my life, but the spirituality of it has had an indelible impact on my life and remains with me.

The future has a lot to do with the past.

Ironically, the success I've experienced at country radio has left me ostracized from pop and other formats of radio.

I was raised in the Church of Christ, which was a very abstinent faith. And I just didn't [drink] - there was never anything that I found seductive enough, I guess, to have a romance with it.

Country music originates with the colloquial, rural aspects of white America. It's really, truly, rural white America's blues.