I try to make an album that reflects what I love about country music. It's not just all about happy parties all the time. There are some sad songs.
When you go to the Opry for a show or hear it on the radio, you get the whole circle of country music.
And I'm the biggest country fan there is, but I'm always a little cautious of a slower song or just a song with subject matter.
When I was 13, I was just figuring out how to play 'Eruption,' poorly, by Eddie Van Halen.
I also was a huge 'Dukes of Hazzard' fan. I used to have T-shirts that said 'Dierks of Hazzard' custom-made.
I think I've claimed the right to be any version of me that I want to be.
That's what we get to do as songwriters, right? You get to explore stuff.
I want to be free to be any version of me I feel like being. I don't want to be McDonald's that serves the same food every time.
Whether lyrically or musically, it reaches in there and grabs your soul. That's the stuff I gravitate toward.
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.'
I can act... well, kind of. I'm comfortable in front of a camera.
I try to make sure to get off the bus as much as I can, try to do something during the day that's local to where I am, whether it's hiking or fishing.
I love singing fun songs; I've built a career on them.
My wife is cool enough to let me write about personal things, to be a songwriter exploring the shadowy sides of love.
Most of my read on America is through looking through the front windshield of a bus and hanging out with country music fans backstage.
Being married is one thing, but having kids will completely change you. I still go out and hang with my buddies, but having two daughters will completely change your perspective on the world.
The people I always loved listening to had a little bit of dirt under their fingernails because they had done some living and had these stories to talk about.
I put a lot of pressure on myself. I tell my wife when she's listening to my songs that the slightest hint of whether she likes it or not puts the pressure on me.
I'm surrounded by all these strong women - my publicist, my manager, and my wife - and sometimes I think that women are more evolved than men, and they are able to process a heartache better.
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.
