I grew up with nothing, so whenever I got to where I could have something I felt like I needed to have everything I couldn't have when I was young.
Growing up in Georgia, I used to think people up north or out west were so different. They're really not. They're just regular people who live in small towns. They grow up and try to raise families and have a job and go to church and play softball. It's that way everywhere.
The older you are, I think you realize what you enjoy and what you don't need, what wears you out and what's important.
'After 17' is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that's kind of where I'm at in that part of my life. If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you'd say, 'Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter,' but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn't apply to anybody that has a child.
It's a scary word, 'cancer.'
Oklahoma's always been good to me.
I'm usually just enjoying life.
I've had to live with women all my life. I grew up with four older sisters, and I was the baby and the only boy.
The fan base that I've had all these years has come along. Some of them are not as plugged into the digital world, so they want to go out and buy the CD at Walmart or something.
For some reason I've been labeled that and it's fine, but there are a lot of other artists that sing real traditional stuff, so I don't know why they picked me. That's what I've always done.
He's written some great songs. I thought that 'Blues Man' was a perfect song for me to do as a tribute.
Hee Haw was probably my biggest exposure to live music at a young age, because there wasn't any live music around my town and no one in my family played instruments.
I could have done a hundred songs, really. It was hard to narrow them down, because I tried to pick songs for the most part that actually did have some effect on me or influenced me in the past.
I didn't realize until I was older what a huge music fan my daddy really was, and actually that my grandma played banjo at one time, and I didn't even know that until a year or two ago.
I really was a fan of his and always have been - his writing especially, you know? I think people a lot of times overlook that part, because he kind of got into that party character so heavy.
Probably some of the songs I never even really listened to the lyrics. Half of them I'd hear off the radio and was probably singing the wrong words and didn't even know it.
My mother kept asking me, 'When are you going to do a gospel album?' And I've always wanted to do a gospel album. Everybody was going on about it, so mom started hounding me more.
I've been a lot of places, and my wife, Denise, she likes a lot of the fancy restaurants. I'm more of a basic eater. I still go into Cracker Barrel. Those are the kind of people who like the kind of music I'm making.
As long as I'm still able to have a hit on the radio and sell a few albums and some tickets, I don't see that it would be worth retiring.
If you just do 50 to 60 shows a year, it's not that much time away from home.
