The key to songwriting is just to be able to observe, and put yourself in situations to be around people, and let those ideas come to you.

Music's cyclical. There's always that next generation that always comes along.

When I first started, you could go to a college campus and it was not cool to wear a country artist's shirt on campus. It was taboo, and there was a stigma involved. In the time from then till now, I'm amazed at how much things have changed. It's young now, it's cool, it's hip

Man, if anybody knew the path that we've been on, no one in their right mind would ever try to duplicate it. That's something Nashville always tries to do, though. If something is successful, they try to repeat it by telling other people, "Hey, do what that guy did." I just don't think it works that way. The first one who gest there, the one that cuts the path ... it's always the roughest path but I think it's got the most reward at the end.

The key to songwriting is just to be able to observe, and put yourself in situations to be around people, and let those ideas come to you.

The best advice I've been given is kind of the "dance with the one who brought you" thing. You got here on what you do so don't change that.

The town I came from really had one industry, and that was furniture.