I'm trying to call more and text less. I don't want to check my phone 5,000 times a day anymore. It was getting to me. I'm bringing 'old' back.
I never want to lose the audience's attention or break up the party, but at the same time, it would be weird not to do some new music.
I wrote a song called 'Here on Earth,' and the hook is, 'There's no answers here on earth.' Basically, searching for the 'why' when someone passes away, and I feel really fortunate that my dad lived as long as he did. But no matter what happens or how it happens, it's certainly a stinker.
As a songwriter, you might write every day and throughout the course of a year you might get four songs that are really special.
A Sunday morning spent reading the paper together, maybe drinking some mimosas, alone, and talking until noon. That would be pretty amazing. Married couples with kids will understand.
I get nervous playing the Opry still. You take that nervous energy and channel it into being amped.
In my 30s, I became more open to music other than country or bluegrass.
If you got in my truck, you were listening to country music, and that's the way it was for a long time. I'm a little more open to other sources of music now, a lot more. But for the formative years, I was just very into country.
No, as an artist, you have to be free to explore all the corners of your heart. There are no boundaries.
It's not that you can do this calculated move to try to further your career. You just follow what's in your heart, and later you look back and go, 'I was either really dumb or really smart, I can't believe I did that.'
Where I'm at in my relationship with my wife or my family and life in general, I feel like it all comes out in the music. Hopefully, it's always there, but in an ambiguous and abstract way and not real straightforward.
I mean, the last thing I want to do is be involved in politics.
I discovered early on that I was more of a strummer than a picker.
