Now one thing I think is really lame, is if you're an artist and you go to a karaoke bar and sing your own song. I like to get up there and sing stuff that I would never sing on stage anywhere else. Like Neil Diamond.

I grew up listening to everything. And rock and roll has always been a big, big part of it - as big a part of what I do as any other type of music.

It feels good when your hometown supports you, and Macon's always done that with us. Every time we come here, it's an event - which is nice.

Traveling all over the country and all over the world, I think you've got a lot of pop acts and a lot of rock acts that are making a point of traveling to different places and making people aware of their music and their shows and the whole deal and I think country music has always sort of stayed, for the most part, in the states.

I know I'm not gonna please everybody when I make a record. I don't let that affect any of my decisions.

To me, a critic is someone who gets paid for their opinion, and they're entitled to that opinion but I don't really put a lot of stock into their opinion. I'm going to cut the kind of records and the kind of songs that I like, and the kind of things that I enjoy doing. If critics dig it, that's fine, if they don't, that's fine.

For every album, I look at where I'm at in my career and think of a title that kind of represents that. And for me, 'Night Train' was kind of a metaphor for where things have gone, from being on one bus with 12 other guys, pulling a trailer my first few years on the road, to now. We're out here with six or seven buses and eight or nine semis.