I'll always have songs with a farm connotation on my albums. It's in the fabric of my music, and I plan to keep it that way.

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

I'm kind of at a point in my career where I can get away with traditional stuff and then get away with some more rocky and pop and edgier stuff, too.

A big part of country music is a way of life, at least from my standpoint. That's how I craft my music from my own life experiences.

I think the defining moment in my career is the day that I moved to Nashville - September 1, 2001. That's the biggest step to getting here is making that move. Anything that happens, the wonderful opportunities that happen to you, can't happen until you make that move.

To have your first No. 1 as an artist was everything I could have ever dreamed for. Now we're keeping our fingers crossed, and hopefully we'll have many more, but there's certainly nothing like the first one.

Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.