Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you finish a song, your first thought is going to be, 'Is this song a hit?' I hate that we think that way, because it kind of takes a little bit of the meaning out of the songs that are being written, but you're definitely going to think, 'Can this song be put on the radio?'
Everybody besides my piano player has been with me since the very first day. We were a four-piece band for a solid two years. It was me playing acoustic and rhythm electric guitar, a bass player, a drummer and a lead guitar player. For a couple of years, we sounded like the Foo Fighters.
At every sound check, I try to practice on the stage that we're gonna play on that night, 'cause every stage is different. Whether it's concrete or whether it's plywood or whether it's Plexiglas, it all requires different things. You can't dance on concrete as well as you can dance on Plexiglas.
It don't matter if you put 'The Dance' out, or any old George Strait song. Someone is going to think that it's awful. You gotta be able to just sit back and kind of laugh it off and know you're doing exactly what you wanna do, and if people don't like it, then it's not really my place to tell them they have to like it.
Any time you're nominated for anything, it's a true blessing and something you should be really excited about, but it's sort of time to not be considered new anymore because I don't really feel like I'm new. I'm just glad people still see me as fresh. I wish there was a 'fresh country artist category' rather than 'new.'
I would love to get shredded or whatever you want to call it, but at the same time, I really enjoy treating myself to a cheat meal more than once a week. I'll eat a piece of bread, or I'll drink a beer, and I'll have fun with my friends. For me, it's really more about being healthy than it is about gaining 40 lbs. of muscle.
When I was 12 or 13, my dad taught me a couple of different chords, and once I learned chords, I never learned to read music, but I learned tablature, like a lot of kids do, and I learned songs that had the chords I knew. It took me a long time to understand the upstroke of picking and strumming, but once I did, it all fell into place.
I played at Sony, Warner Bros., Universal, Big Machine, Capitol... after I played every one of those places, everyone offered me a record deal. I was just like, 'Who am I? Why do I even deserve this?' There are people busting their butts on Broadway doing this hardcore, playing three hours a night for tips, and I didn't even ask for it.