Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Putting out music as it's made, versus holding it until an album's finished, allows me to be more timely and maintain balance.
There's not a day goes by that I don't appreciate the freedom that I have to make music and tour and spend time with my family.
I grew up really close to Alabama, about 10 minutes from the Alabama line. We'd make trips to Alabama, and I feel at home there.
As much as I enjoy traveling and playing on stage as an artist, I really find my true sense of purpose in a room writing a song.
We try not to pull any punches and be straightforward, and I think that's what helped us connect with everybody across the board.
I thought that I could have a career in music. I really didn't know exactly what I wanted to do or how I would go about doing it.
To all my people back in Nashville who have been there from the start, you put your faith in me. You were there for the long haul.
Shane McAnally is a really good friend of mine. He's one of the first guys that really embraced what I was doing with an open mind.
My route is a little bit nontraditional. A lot of the people working in Nashville, they have a model. I don't really fit into that.
I learned from making a few of these low-budget videos early on that the best way to go about doing it is just to keep it honest and real.
I was able to really see that connection as a football player where success requires a lot of hard work and effort, physically and mentally.
Once it's out there in the universe, it's serving its purpose, and I'm proud to have other folks hear the music that I was a part of making.
Football sometimes is stressful. Music is more of a kind of laid-back type, chilled-out kind of activity. It kind of keeps me balanced, I guess.
I realized after writing songs for years how important it is. Whether it provides a living for me or not, that creative outlet is something I need.
From the pop side, people like Usher, and when they first came out, I listened to guys like K-Ci and JoJo; that '90s R&B thing really caught my ear.
It took me a couple years to get over the stereotype I was letting myself get caught up on, being a football player trying to start a career in music.
I like to come up with lots of different sounds. So the final version of a song might have been 10 completely different songs before we finally got it right.
I wasn't intentionally trying to be different, but that was an element of what I naturally do that happened to be unique enough to spark a curiosity for people.
I wish I could make multiple records, stylistically. The way that I'm gonna remedy that is to make a diverse record with a lot of different styles on one record.
I don't really know that I'm aware of a lot of the inspiration and influence that I'm under, because I didn't have an extensive musically educational upbringing.
I definitely grew up as a small-town... I guess you could call it the 'small-town football player,' according to the stereotype. I wasn't involved in music at all.
I was pretty gung-ho about music and pursuing that and figuring that whole thing out, so I was wide-eyed and ready to go when I moved to Nashville. I never looked back.
I don't get irrational about it, but I do have a deeply-rooted competitive spirit. Not necessarily towards other people, but towards any obstacle that I set for myself.
I think that people in general appreciate honesty and not trying to cook something up just to fit a mold that would be beneficial for you. I never made music like that.
With a song called 'House Party,' you'd expect it to be more about a big party, not as much about a relationship, so we tried to put a little bit of a unique twist on it.
'Make You Miss Me' is an important song to me. Having it go No. 1 as the fifth single off of my first record is the cherry on top of a chapter in my life I'll never forget.
I'm not trying to become a pop artist, and I'm not trying to make sure I stay a country artist. I'm just trying to make sure I make the best music I can, according to my way.
I drove right into the music with the same sort of attitude as I went into the football stuff with. Just found a routine and hard work, and it helped me progress a lot faster.
I experimented and explored ways to find my own niche in Nashville, and I was having trouble with it for a while because stylistically, I didn't feel like I necessarily fit in.
In a small town, it's either sports or a band with your buddies. I was always athletic. But in college, I was exposed to all this new music, and I was drawn to hip-hop and R&B.
I connect music to the emotions that come from relationships, so most of the songs that I write are inspired by those circumstances, emotions, feelings, all that kind of stuff.
You want to stand out and be unique and do something different. I always try to zig when they zag - I guess it's a football term, but it applies to a lot of different areas of life.
The money factor had been kind of my excuse as to why I hadn't put out any music. So I just found the cheapest way to make music and get it to people, and that was via the Internet.
I didn't know what to expect, having not been an artist before. From the outside, you only see romantic snapshots of what seems like a great lifestyle, and it is, but it's also grueling.
I was a product of the relationships with my family, the environment I grew up in; all those things I kind of put on the back burner when I got into music, and my life all changed dramatically.
Sometimes I'm not even aware of some of the issues going on with me in my life until I sit down and start kind of looking for inspiration, trying to find something that inspires that creativity.
I'm conflicted about the lyric tattoo thing. I feel like that's a lifetime decision, and I always feel like, 'I hope you don't regret this a couple years from now when you get tired of that song.'
I've had a lot of folks tell me that my songs weren't quite country because they didn't really sound like anybody that had come along and done it before me. I felt a little out of place for a while.
You think about the artists I look at as icons, and you assume they were instantly embraced. That's usually not the case. In reality, they had to overcome a lot of noes to get where they wanted to be.
I do feel pressure internally and externally to put out music, but that excites me because I love songwriting, and this brings me back to why I got in music in the first place, so I'm excited about that.
I don't think I'm conscious of most of the things I've drawn from football, because they're so ingrained in me now... understanding that the discipline and the routine and the regimentation to be successful.
I kept hearing all these rules: 'You can't say that in country music.' 'You can't use that kind of beat.' I became so frustrated. It may have slingshotted me, in a rebellious way, toward doing something different.
I don't know where my fashion sense comes from, exactly. I've always been interested in, not necessarily being unique, but not necessarily sticking to the preexisting paradigm - whether it be clothes or music or whatever.
I was really only around country music on the radio, and I think because I grew up so close to Atlanta, and R&B was such a big part of that culture, by proximity I think a lot of that music influenced me without knowing it.
I have two or three guys that I'm really close to. We have a great friendship, and I think that helps our songwriting relationship. It's hard to start... with new people and cover the ground that I've covered with those guys.
There's such a strong community element in country - it's like a family. So I don't want to do anything that can come off, even if I'm not intentionally doing it, as giving the perception that I'm trying to abandon that family.
A lot of the lessons that are taught in football will promote success in anything you get into after football; for me, it just happens to be music. Being disciplined. Good character. Trying to do the right thing, and working hard.
It's liberating to wear clothes that are outside the boundaries of what I'm supposed to wear, ya know, based on the traditional model, whether that be a country music singer, or being from the country. It's not a rebellious thing.
I don't like the idea that in music, clothes, taste or anything, we are limited to a certain style, because we need to maintain an identity, maybe between some subculture group. Hopefully, all those walls break down, and music is just music.
I am kind of the front man for a team of people behind the scenes who are working just as hard as me and are putting in just as much time to make this all happen. I'm not trying to be humble. I just want everyone to get credit where credit is due.