I do write a lot from personal experience, but I also embellish a bit.

You leave home, you move on and you do the best you can. I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am.

There's room for everyone. There's room for pop country, for 'rock & roll' country, for stone-cold country, and everything in-between. Great music is great music.

When I got a record deal I said, 'I'm only wearing jeans. I'm not wearing frilly dresses.' Dancing around in sequins is just not who I am. I wanted to be heard, not seen.

You have a career, and you start as a business person. And you work your way, you reach this peak, and you know the time's going to come when you go back down.

I hope my music sets up the platform for me to be able to do lots of things - to have a cowboy-boot line, maybe, or do a perfume or makeup deal.

I used to play for 200 people and now I'm selling out places that hold 16,000 people. It's a big change, and it's so cool to see people out there screaming the words to songs that I wrote. It just really reassures me that what I'm doing is working, and it really boosts my confidence, as far as on stage as a performer and a writer.