“Cry Baby wasn’t necessarily a baby theme but I understand what they’re saying. So like, Cry Baby is definitely a remaining character throughout all of my albums.”

I’m very, very in touch with my emotions.

If I don’t see a music video to it while writing it, I just scrap it immediately. It’s very visual.

I also made a lot of really great friends on that show [the Voice], so that’s one of the most important things that I’ve taken out of that experience.

I was genuinely happy when I wrote that song [Training Wheels] and very in love. That’s a very rare emotion to evoke out of me.

It’s very hard to be an artist, on my first album, and I’m like asking for money for a music video for every song – it’s so hard to do. You have to pick your battles for sure, but I definitely want – and I’ve always worked to make it all connect – for all of it to feel cohesive.

And still as an adult like I do as well, you know what I mean like I literally just cried in the first interview that I had today. Like, I’m just a very emotional human.

It’s just weird because like when I was writing Cry Baby I like the only thing that I was thinking about, when writing it, was the concepts and the visuals, and the way that it sounded kind of happened naturally.

I don’t really think about what people think of my music, and how they listen to it or what my demographic is.

Make sure this [music industry] is what you love to do, and you can’t imagine doing anything else.

When I first started writing the album, “Cry Baby” was a song that I really wanted to write because it represented all of these personal insecurities that I had for a long time.

Cry Baby is a character so I think that the next album is going to be about a specific thing in her life or another place in her world. It’s going to be a bit deeper into a bigger picture.

I think, being emotional is this thing that people think you’re not strong. They don’t look at you as a strong person, and it’s weird ‘cuz honestly being emotional has nothing to do with your strength.

I obviously have a different connection to each song in a different way, and they all mean something different to me.

It’s like visual is super important to me. So if I am writing a song, like, I have to have the title.

I love directing my music videos and writing video treatments, and I think it’s all just because I love the visual aspect of it as well.

Eventually I realized that Cry Baby was a character that was based off of me, and that we had a lot of similarities.

I don’t think Chris realized he was in a band until 2001. He all of a sudden woke up one day and realized he was in a band. He thought he was just recording my solo project. Three albums later, we’re in Baltimore trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.

Country fans need to support country music by buying albums and concert tickets for traditional artists or the music will just fade away. And that would be really sad.

I’m just going to do music and when I feel like I’ve gotten enough music to put an album together then that’s when I’m going to do it.

I feel as passionate as when I was 13 years old and just released my first album. I feel the same amount of adrenaline in my blood, and the same amount of curiosity as well. Curiosity about why I’m different.

I wouldn’t buy somebody’s album on a dare if they called him a musician’s musician. I don’t write to be a writer’s writer. I don’t want to be like the little-magazine writer.

I don’t think people realize how much work it takes to make an album.

I can still do clothing, movies, cartoons. I’mma get mine regardless. Whether I put an album out or not, I’m still gonna see a check.

We did an album one time called White Mansions, about the civil war, but it was written by a guy from England.