If one artist sells five million albums, the tendency is for other artists to say, 'Maybe I should do a little of that, too.' That can be tough to resist.

I've certainly had to bite my tongue on occasion and live to fight another day, so to speak, on certain things. But when you're new and fresh, you come out and think, 'I don't want to screw my chance up, so I'll go along with what everybody else does.'

My message to kids who bully other kids is: You know it's wrong! What's really going on? Try not to make somebody else's life miserable because you are.

You know, I can be the happiest man in the world with minimal record success.

The passion for doing music, the passion that I have for going out and playing it live - my love for country music is back.

In my mind, as long as I did what was right for me, I was cool. But that's not the way it works. You have to think about other people and take their feelings into account.

The way that I am now, I don't want to accept mediocrity. I don't want to accept the easy road.