When I started out, it was this sense of, "Let's put out a record and see what happens and see where you go and see how you feel and where we can take it." That was a very different world back then.

Emmy Lou Harris introduced me to the work of the Vietnam Veterans of America foundation and the Campaign for a Land Mine Free World.

I don't think you need to dumb down to a child, you merely have to be clear, you know?

I was a liberal arts junkie and I figured, well, I'll go work for somebody somewhere. All I knew was that I was going to have to come home and figure it out.

When I started out, it was this sense of, "Let's put out a record and see what happens and see where you go and see how you feel and where we can take it." That was a very different world back then.

As far as politically how country music goes, it's true that it's regarded from a distance as a genre of music that at different times, the more right elements of the political spectrum have claimed for their own.

I grew up listening to everything, and when I got signed to a record deal out of Nashville, that was my introduction to what was happening in country music.