Anytime that another artist or a critic that is well-respected says something nice about you, you're always thankful and hope that you can live up to that.
It's man's work. My dad was gone at 4:30 in the morning and home at 8 at night, and he worked underground, and the last mine he worked in was 26 inches high in a lot of places. He liked the engineering of it - he liked the moving the earth and being able to extract something and put it back for reclamation. He enjoyed the whole process.
I'm always trying to do as many different things as I can, just so when one is not doing so hot, maybe the other is still there.
I'm not reinventing the wheel here. I'm not Chuck Berry or Bill Monroe. Guys like that are from outer space.
If I have a talent, it lies in the creative process.
I can only be me. I have a hard time being a chameleon as a singer.
We have a history in country music of writing about the darker side of things - maybe not as much in modern times, but there's a lot of cheating and self-deprecation. We sort it out in song, in country music, as a genre.
I don't look at it as mainstream country versus outsider.
