I spend most of hunting season at the ranch. We all love to hunt whitetails, and we have a pretty good supply in South Texas. I also love to hunt elk in Arizona, mule deer in Utah, and I've been to Canada to hunt caribou.
I can only say thank you and thanks also to all of the great songwriters who wrote those wonderful songs that became number ones.
I don't mind traveling that much when I can go somewhere and stay there for a while, but touring is different. You rarely see anything. You get there early in the morning and you're resting all day, and you go in and do a sound check, and you do the show, and then bam you're gone.
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys are simply the best band that ever was.
You know, traditional country music is something that's going to be around forever.
I like people who are loyal to me, and I like to be loyal, too.
You know, legends are people like Haggard and Jones and Wills and Sinatra. Those people are legends. I'm just a young buck out here trying to keep in that same circle with the rest of 'em.
Swing is my favorite kind of music.
Country music is important to me, and I love it, but it's not my whole life.
I used to do a lot of interviews in the early '80s, when my career started, but it came to a point when I decided I didn't want to talk anymore, and people kind of understood that and left me alone.
My son had toyed with the idea of writing and trying to write a little bit, so that kind of gave me the bug to write also.
If you start out trying to achieve a specific thing - like doing stadium shows or going into the studio and doing an album - the end result is what counts.
I love to fish offshore for billfish, and have fished all over for them from the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico to the Texas gulf. I haven't made it to Australia yet, but someday I'm going.
Country music is important to me, and I love it, but it's not my whole life... I like to be outdoors, I like to hunt, I like to fish, I like to play golf.
When I think about putting together an album, the process of listening to hundreds of songs each time and picking out the best 10 or so that will go on the record, it really sinks in as to just how many songs I've listened to all these years.
I've just tried for all of these years to find the best records, the best songs that I could find that fit me, and I've had great people to work with all these years.
I think the melody is the first time I hear in a song and if I like the melody, then I'll pay closer attention to the lyrics.
This is the kind of problem you want to have! Country radio has been great to me my whole career. I can't thank those folks enough.
Even though I've been doing it for so long, I still feel fresh. Even when I walk out on stage, I still feel pretty much the same as I've always felt.
I always enjoy it when I walk on stage. There were some times when I was working so much in the '80s, and I felt really burnt-out. But I'd be up there singing and not be 10,000 million miles away, you know, just opening my mouth and the words coming out.
