My thing is you just have to try to feel young and stay young. Obviously you get a little older, but I still want my music to be young. I don't want to sound like an old dad onstage, so you just have to write music that sounds young.
'Dirt Road Diaries,' in my mind, is a perfect country guy song. It speaks to the hard-working guy, and I'm excited for the fans to hear that one.
My thing is to get up there and have a good time and give the fans all you can and appreciate them spending their money and being in the stands - and just be appreciative of them cheering when you come onstage.
I will always really work hard to write as much as I can, but I also love sitting back and waiting on those big Nashville songwriters to send me some great songs, too.
I've been so blessed to have my career gradually get bigger and bigger, so I've been able to absorb stuff and take stuff gradually.
Every day I wake up and I lay in bed counting my blessings and saying my prayers for how fortunate I am to have great fans and health and family.
I don't give any merit to criticism. 'Country Girls (Shake it for Me),' I can see where people view that as sexist, but I just view that as having fun.
I grew up in a family where everybody had a good time and we were at the lake every weekend and going to the beach and living a good life. It's been the way we always lived, and my wife's the same way - enjoy every day and have fun.
My best artist friend is definitely Jason Aldean. He and I really get along great and are really great friends. It's fun to tour with a buddy and somebody that I just enjoy hanging out with. If we weren't touring together, we'd be hunting in the off-season still and knocking around doing stuff, certainly.
Obviously, fans are the beginning and end for any artist. The minute your fans embrace you and accept you, you begin this ride of being in music and having a career doing something you love. You get to go be a kid and live out your dreams by performing music for fans who come out to your shows.
I wouldn't necessarily say she is a country artist. I mean, obviously Taylor Swift started in country, but she morphed into somewhat of a cultural icon, so, who am I to judge what she is?
It's a good community, country music, because we get the chance to sit down and... me and Tim McGraw spend a lot of time. Me and Kenny Chesney had the opportunity to spend a lot of time together. It's been a lot of great advice through the years.
My focus is trying to make great music and putting on great shows, and whatever happens beyond that is a bonus to me.
Nothing is more rewarding than to take a song, create it out of thin air and then watch it affect people.
I'll never forget when me and Jason Matthews wrote the line, 'Don't be a tape player hater,' in 'Country Man,' I don't think I ever laughed harder. We didn't know where we were gonna put that in a song, but we knew we had to make it into a song. I just remember laughing and being so proud of such a goofy little line.