I love being able to say a quick thanks to the man above for the music and the fact that we're even in this spot. If you'd told me this in college when I was sitting on a stool and playing for enchiladas and tips, I'd have bet everything against it.

I want there to be a level of respect between everybody.

I don't really drink before a show. That's my only drinking rule. Especially with today's cell-phone cameras, there's no win to it.

Certain nights, when everything's perfect and we have thousands of people partying their asses off, I break my rule and have a drink onstage. I've never done a show drunk. Well, I take that back. In the early days I did.

On the road, in my bunk, I sleep better than I do anywhere else in the world.

I do sing about drinking, but it's in a party way. I don't sing about drinking in a drowning-my-sorrows way, like in George Jones's "If Drinking Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)."

I'm all right. I'm good. There has been better times, but I'll be okay.