When I was little, we lived on 8 acres and my mom had a horse. But when I was 7, my mom kicked my dad out, and then in order to feed us five kids, she got critters cheap or for free and raised them for food. We milked a cow, raised chickens, pigs and beef cattle. We heated our one-story house with wood and stayed cold all winter.
It's a very smart, progressive bunch, these people that make country music. They're not country hicks sitting behind a desk with a big cigar giving out record deals and driving round in Cadillacs with cattle horns on the front grille: it's a bunch of really wonderful, open-minded, great people down on Music Row that make this music.
You never ask a Maasai warrior how many cattle he has; it's like asking someone how much money they've got in their bank account.
I trade musical favours like cattle. I can't remember the last time I did a remix for actual money. For me, I try and get a good swap.
I've got cattle on 4,000 acres about 100 miles east of Dallas, but I've also got another 65-acre ranch where I raise American miniature horses.
I think you're going to find out that westerns will be coming back. It's Americana, it's part of our history, the cowboy, the cattle drive, the sheriff, the fight for law, order and justice. Justice will always prevail as far as I'm concerned.
In the 1880s, a weedy Easterner named Owen Wister had something like a nervous breakdown. Wyoming, with its wide-open spaces and healthy pursuits, was prescribed as a cure. Wister was immediately smitten by the taciturn cowboys and the rules imposed upon them by the cattle barons.
When I was growing up in north-west London, our milkman's cart was pulled by a horse, and cattle still grazed on the meadows near Church Farm.
There is no good reason for our cattle producers to have such limited market access. Our beef is the best in the world, and we need to be allowed to reach global markets.
The Texas thing is such a big deal because whenever I see Texas in a TV show, they always show slow-moving cattle and cowboys with the hats. I wanted to show that Texas isn't a stereotype.
