I grew up listening to everything. And rock and roll has always been a big, big part of it - as big a part of what I do as any other type of music.
I've been wearing Wrangler jeans for more than a decade now, all the way back to when I first started playing clubs in my teens in Georgia.
My main lucky number is 9. That was my baseball number in high school. My other lucky number is 3, because that's the one I wore before I got to high school and had to pick a different one.
It's the only time that I'm ever nervous on stage, is when we're doing live TV. Especially an awards show, because I know you can't fix it.
But for me, I thought you made a record, you got on a bus, went out and played your shows and made a lot of money. That was the way it was supposed to go down. But there's a lot more to it than that. There are a lot of early mornings, late nights, a lot of traveling, a lot of being away from home, being away from your family.
We call them impact songs, and people buy impact songs. But you just never know what those songs are going to be. One of those songs that really went through the roof for us was 'Big Green Tractor,' which I thought was kind of a fun little ditty song that I never in a million years thought would be as big as it was. But it was.
I don't know if Nashville will ever be ousted as the Music City. But I also think that here, over the last few years, Georgia has definitely kind of risen to the top as far as the crop of young artists coming out of this area that are kind of making waves, you know?
The 'Night Train' has already been a crazy ride for me. We flew around making TV appearances and stadium announcements all over the country, fueled by little more than coffee and adrenaline... so many fans jumped on board with us, and I couldn't be more thankful.
It's one of those things where if I do a movie, I don't even know if I'm any good. So, I may do one and it sucks and I'm a horrible actor, and I'll never do another one.
I didn't want my records to sound like anybody else, and when I've got my guys in the studio, I have a language with those guys because we work together every day. A lot of times, you bring in outside guys, studio players, whatever, and they're great musicians. It's just that they don't necessarily play the way I want it to be played.
'She's Country' obviously changed a lot of things for us and pretty much, I think, doubled our crowd size in just a few months time.
My mom was a single mom, and she had enough on her plate. I knew when I was doing something I wasn't supposed to, and I tried to keep her from finding out about it. I did a pretty good job of that.
People see you onstage and the glamorous side, but they don't see you traveling 600 miles a night, eating truck stop food and spending by yourself staring at walls.