When you play the bars, you pay your dues. It does matter that you know those things [songs]. And the great thing for me, too, is that I draw on that stuff as influences. It's also stuff that you put in the tank that you pull from to make records.

There's just a lot of people that hold on to what country means to them. I love fiddle, I love steel, but I don't think it should be a rule that it has to be used in every song. I think that's not what defines or makes country music.

I wouldn't be the man I am today, If not for those I've loved along the way

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.

I'm not a guy who can go in and go, "Hey, are we doing right or wrong?" I just do it. And whatever it is, it is.

Now me and my brother go to see him some times but he don't have much to say anymore. So we sit on his headstone with a fifth of Jack D. Here's to a long line of sinners like me.

As far as writing, it's grown because I've really grown comfortable with who I am.