My main thing is I'm gonna go out there every night and give it all I got and just try to put on the best show I can. That's just the way I'm programmed and wired.
I think certainly after every show I headline, I will be available to the fans. When I'm headlining a show, I don't walk off stage. I'll walk to the front of the stage and sign hats and shirts and tickets for 15 to 30 minutes, until everyone has everything signed.
I think it's always important to constantly keep the band on their toes and try new things that you hope will work. That's how 'Apologize' was born, and maybe down the line another little song will be born by that mentality. I've always really liked that song.
I try to be a good representative for country music. But as a country artist, it's important to move the needle and make a difference beyond your core audience. But you can't ever strategically try to accomplish that; then things get weird.
I always want to make an album that lets people immerse in it, kind of like you get caught up in a good movie.
Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.
I just cut songs I love and that represent what I want to say. And if it crosses over, that's very flattering. It's cool to know that with people listening to rock and rap, I'm sitting on their iPods along with that stuff.
I don't keep diaries anymore; They're quite incriminating. I just keep all the dirt road diaries in my head.
I refuse to be one of those artists who, 10 years from now, they're bitter about the rise and the fall of their career. I understand that somewhere there's a peak and a crest for me, and I'm going to enjoy all levels. I'm going to enjoy this ride that I'm on, and when it slows down, that's when it will be time for another phase of my life.
To have your first No. 1 as an artist was everything I could have ever dreamed for. Now we're keeping our fingers crossed, and hopefully we'll have many more, but there's certainly nothing like the first one.
I think the defining moment in my career is the day that I moved to Nashville - September 1, 2001. That's the biggest step to getting here is making that move. Anything that happens, the wonderful opportunities that happen to you, can't happen until you make that move.
I'm kind of at a point in my career where I can get away with traditional stuff and then get away with some more rocky and pop and edgier stuff, too.
I got my iPad, and I'm trying to buy books on that, but I kind of like a book. At the end of my life, when I'm old, I want to have all these shelves full of books. So I'm just gonna do the book thing.
My thing is, when you put a bunch of rules on a tour, you have to hire three more people to enforce all the rules. So, with me, I want everyone to feel comfortable. It's a lot of little moving parts out here, and little hiccups will come. At the end of the day, the show's going to go on, and I want everybody to truly enjoy it.
I love nothing more than to perform my songs in front of a live audience. And whatever I'm doing is driven toward finding or writing songs and putting out hit songs that drive people coming to see me live. Because, at the end of the day, that's what I enjoy the most.
Just really, really believe in what you're trying to do. Don't let people alter that. Let people advise you and lead you down paths to make smart business decisions. But trust your instinct and trust that overwhelming drive that made you put all your dreams and everything on the line.
I want my music to jump off the stage and out of the speakers. When we do 'Rain Is A Good Thing' paired back to back with 'Country Girl,' it just feels like the roof is fixin' to come off the place.