I'm trying to make records where people don't feel cheated. Nashville has been guilty of insulting the Country Music audience for years and years.

San Antonio is like a military town. It's like literally - when I was growing up there, there were five Air Force bases, plus Fort Sam Houston. I was always sort of near the military.

I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now and I never get tired of the view.

I have a low tolerance for mediocrity in music and life. I'm into pain and joy and the in-between doesn't interest me.

When you're really bummed out, the last thing you want to hear is up-tempo and positive. And it lets you know that you're not alone, that somebody has hurt before. It works the same way with chick songs as it does with political songs. When you hear somebody singing about these things, you know that you're not alone, that somebody else is suspicious of what's going on around us in the world. So you don't feel like you're crazy, and you feel like you might be able to make a difference.

We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.

I was born on this mountain, this mountains my home, she holds me and keeps me from worry and woe.