Even when I'm touring, I feel like a sideman ... everybody's working together. We get to play longer solos; it's not just "Here's the record! Thank you for coming Goodnight" ... it has always had a "band" feel instead of being a singer and his backup band.

There ain't no future in the past.

I'm the guy who loves being in the supporting cast.

The funny thing is, people's perceptions of what a song is about is usually wrong a majority of the time. But they're still going to read what they want to into it.

And from my place, and from the time that I went through my divorce, I also had my father pass away in the middle of all that. And it kind of made everything else just kind of like the back burner, you know.

It is not that I don't like contemporary country music because I do. I love it. I have recorded a lot and have had great success recording records that have not been very traditional country records.

My last two records that I made were both quite pointed in one direction and I think I do my best stuff when it's all over the map, when there's a couple traditional things, a couple pretty rocking things.