I haven't figured out why people like what they like. I don't know. I wish I did. I could sell that to everybody, man, and be a millionaire.

Records are one thing, and obviously, without hit songs, you don't have the opportunity to do your shows. But my live show has always been my selling tool.

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.

You're not going to hear me singing songs about Wall Street because I don't know anything about that.

I love playing music. And that's what it's all about.

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 think it's important to do things that you're interested in. I think it's important to have other outlets away from the music industry.