'Tailgate Blues' is kind of a lyrical masterpiece of a country song.

I'm a really, really optimistic and really, really positive person. My main thing is, 'Enjoy life. Celebrate life.'

That's gotta be the one remaining constant - jeans have gotta be tight, baby.

I want to be comfortable on TV. If I'm comfortable, they're comfortable watching me. I think nothing's more icky than watching icky on TV.

Every day I wake up and I lay in bed counting my blessings and saying my prayers for how fortunate I am to have great fans and health and family.

My thing is you just have to try to feel young and stay young. Obviously you get a little older, but I still want my music to be young. I don't want to sound like an old dad onstage, so you just have to write music that sounds young.

There's always gonna be guys who are just wonderful singers and probably shouldn't be writing songs. Then there's always gonna be guys who move up the ranks writing. I don't know what's healthier or what's the best thing - probably whatever yields the best songs.