But I'm also a music lover, and I'll always try a lot of different things.

I came to town thinking that everybody had the same idea of what country music was that I did.

You know, you want everything you do, obviously, to be a success critically and commercially. But what you find out as you go along is that everything won't.

It takes so many people to make a success story like that. It starts with the song and the songwriters, then Mark Wright's producing, all of the players that played on it, me singing, the marketing department, the promotion department at the label... It takes a lot of people to make a hit like that.

Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter. When you come close to sellin' out reconsider. Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance. And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.

There's no great guitarist that doesn't sit down and listen to Chet Atkins and Eddie Van Halen, and all these other great players.

So you do shorter versions of the hits, or you take out a long guitar solo or things like that to make time for the hits and new music as well. But I don't think any of us ever get to do as much new music as we would like to.