I'll never quit playing country music, or at least acknowledging it, always, as the cornerstone of what I am.

I don't really drink, but I've been around a lot of drinking and, at 18, when you start playing in bars, you start to witness the good, the bad and the ugly of alcohol as a source of escape. I wrote about it because I witnessed its use as a means of medicating - a lot of people using it to medicate themselves from hurt.

I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear falling on my ear the son of God discloses. And he walks with me, and he talks with me. And he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

However you arrive at the ability to ignore self-doubt - if you can acquire it or possess it or find it or discover it - move beyond self-doubt.

I embrace country music because of love, a love of what I came from.

It's meant to reaffirm the validity of that music - clean, minimalist, honest, classic music.

My guitars, Cadillacs, and hillbilly music Is the only thing that keeps me hanging on.