I walked in, looked around, and the navy recruiter was a really hot brunette, so I signed up with her.
I want people to focus on listening, not the image. And I want to play to everyone: rednecks, dubstep kids, punk rockers, and people who like as-real-as-it-gets country music.
You make a little noise, and you can sell out your local hometown club. But then you drive an hour down the road to the next town, and there might be eight people there.
I pretty much just hang out with the kid. I want, like three more, because that's all I ever want to do.
Saviours get crucified.
I someday hope to find the time and coin to invest more of my creative energy towards the visual media side of releasing music.
I'd love to make short film videos pushing the conventional standards of what a country music video can be.
Some people will say, and have said, that I'm trying to run from country, but I'm never going to make anything other than a country record.
I thought it was hilarious when 'Brace for Impact' was released, and people said I had abandoned country, even though the song is dripping with pedal steel. If anything, that tells me I'm making progress.
Atlantic has been great to me. They didn't flinch when I told them I was self-producing, and nobody was popping their head in the studio.
There are no expectations other than those I place on myself to be a great father and husband.
I never really had any grand aspirations of mainstream country success because I know what that entails, and I'd probably be too much trouble for people to work with. If I can just reach the point where I can get 200 or 300 people in small clubs and I'm carving out enough money to pay my bills, then I'm the happiest guy I know.
There have been many socially conscious concept albums. I wanted to make a 'social consciousness' concept album disguised as a country record.
I'm interested in exploring various forms of newer media that might allow those who otherwise don't listen to country to find and connect with my music.
Part of me still feels like I've never had the opportunity to properly express all my earliest influences, so for now, I find isolation to be my biggest influence.
Somebody told me once it takes an Americana song five minutes to say what a country song says in three - so I try to write country songs. But really, all good music is just soul music.
London's been really good to me - England as a whole - but the Scots and the Irish especially are very appreciative because that's kind of where it all came from.
I'm very grateful, but at the same time, I'm glad all this happened when I'm 36 instead of 26 because I - I'm just such a homebody, and I just want to write songs and make the best record that I can.
I find that I have to just kind of avoid the Internet as much as possible. And even more so, when I go and look at it, I remember why I should be avoiding it.
I fail to see how anything can still be weird in 2016.
