I'm very shy and awkward. I think the best thing is to embrace it. It's about accepting who you are and what you want to become and knowing all that you've got to work with, whether it's good or bad. My music was the only place I could be me for the longest time.

Robert Duvall saw me playing at a restaurant in Louisiana and invited me to be an extra in his movie 'The Apostle.' He gave me a guitar for my sixth birthday, and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

I could be myself. I'm very shy and awkward. I think the best thing is to embrace it.

The rule of songwriting: say what you want to say, say it again, say it a different way, then say it again.

I've got a lot of dreams I want to achieve, and I hope someone can cheer me on as I'll cheer them on in their dreams.

When I was 13 or 14, I took seven months off from touring. I did a lot of weekend gigs in Louisiana. We have fairs and festivals every weekend. But I took seven months off. That's when I really started digging deep. I wrote a couple songs that year that I still play every now and then for people.

All I knew when I moved to Nashville was that I wanted to make music in whatever shape and form I could.