My elementary school is still there [in Luttrell, Tennessee]. I drop by my high school. It's a small community. I say this every night before I do the song 'The Boys of Fall' in the show - I'm really happy about where I grew up and how I grew up.

I'm proud of the fact that I'm at a point in my career that if I want to take a little bit of a left turn and make an album that is more hushed, more acoustic and more personal, that I can do it.

One thing that I learned that helped me deal with human behavior is confrontation, and I'm not that great with confrontation at all. But once I started to be O.K. with that, the better everybody's life got.

There are only so many hours you can sit on the bus and watch TV or play basketball or whatever we do to pass the time before we go out onstage.

It's funny to see my friends going through that middle-age thing about losing their hair. I went through it in college. They all say, "Oh my God, I'm getting old. I'm never getting laid again." Shut up. Yes, you are.

I didn't need more fame or money. I needed more heart.

I need to recharge creatively, and get off the clock of having to be somewhere just because, and having to keep juggling all these things.