“And radio definitely doesn’t; they want that positive, uptempo thing.”

I think every album you have, especially if it’s done well, you feel like you’re competing with yourself.

They’re just regular people who live in small towns. They grow up and try to raise families and have a job and go to church and play softball. It’s that way everywhere.

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?

To me, songwriting is the backbone of Nashville.

Half of them I’d hear off the radio and was probably singing the wrong words and didn’t even know it.

The music business doesn’t take up that much of my time.

Everybody was going on about it, so mom started hounding me more.

I have my little antique car collection, and when the weather is pretty I like to get out one of my old cars.

I’m usually just enjoying life.

Love is stolen in the shadows of the night. Though it’s wrong all along, it keeps going on as long as they keep it out of sight.

I have a little route I run down in the country, down Nachez Trace Parkway.

Pour me something tall and strong, make it a Hurricane before I go insane.

When I was in high school, I don’t know that I really had big dreams.

If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you’d say, “Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter,” but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn’t apply to anybody that has a child.

I always try to make the music that I like and think my fans will like.

I don’t write all my stuff.

Videos come definitely after the music has been created, but I have always felt, and especially today, that videos are vital in the album process. I think that we live in a very visual era, and if you make a mistake with a video, those images will accompany the song forever.

Iowa is an amazing place. But I didn’t have much race around me. I was definitely not like everyone there.

I was definitely an at-risk kid growing up.

There’s a lot of things I would definitely go to bat for in Hawaii. I’ve been all over that stuff. If someone told me to be quiet about that because of my profession, no. That’s my people.

It’s definitely attractive when a man can dress well.

At some point in time, you definitely have to go drama. Not to say that you’re going drama just because everybody else does it.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged.

My business acumen is definitely growing.