My contract with mercury PolyGram Nashville was about to expire. And I never had really been happy. The company, the record company, just didn't put any promotion behind me. I think one album, maybe the last one I did, they pressed 500 copies. And I was just disgusted with it. And about that time that I got to feeling that way, Lou Robin, my manager, came to me and talked to me about a man called Rick Rubin that he had been talking to that wanted me to sign with his record company.

The ones that you're calling wild are going to be the leaders in a little while.

That was American Recordings. I said, I like the name, maybe it'd be OK. So I said, I'd like to meet the guy [Rick Rubin ].I'd like for him to tell me what he can do with me that they're not doing now.

I love to go to the studio and stay there 10 or 12 hours a day. I love it. What is it? I don't know. It's life.

People call me wild. Not really though, I'm not.I guess I've never been normal, not what you call Establishment. I'm country.

Life is rough so you gotta be tough.

Sam Phillips always encouraged me to do it my way, to use whatever other influences I wanted, but never to copy...if there hadn't been a Sam Phillips, I might still be working in a cotton field.