Music is like having a conversation. All musicians inspire each other, and they're all geared to play something that matters.

I had just lost my dad and I remembered all the songs we used to go and hear at concerts, and the records around the house and sometimes we'd play together.

It would be fun to go back and see where all my songs stopped, because I think I'd have every number in the top 100. It never ceases to amaze me. It still hurts when one doesn't work, because you put your heart and soul into it.

With The Key, it was, I had gone through a divorce and losing my father, and just kinda really reminiscing about how much I loved the traditional side of country music, so I made a record that was really traditional from start to finish.

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.

The devaluation of music and what it's now deemed to be worth is laughable to me. My single costs 99 cents. That's what a single cost in 1960. On my phone, I can get an app for 99 cents that makes fart noises - the same price as the thing I create and speak to the world with. Some would say the fart app is more important. It's an awkward time. Creative brains are being sorely mistreated.

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.