The first song I learned on the guitar was a Kenny Chesney song called 'What I Need to Do'; it was just an easy song to play... and it was really cool to see that come full-circle a few years later and have him record a song that I was part of.
I learned from making a few of these low-budget videos early on that the best way to go about doing it is just to keep it honest and real.
Obviously, I love country music, so I wanna be able to live in the country music genre and then play to country music fans.
I'm not really a piano player, but I play enough to get away with it.
I was really only around country music on the radio, and I think because I grew up so close to Atlanta, and R&B was such a big part of that culture, by proximity I think a lot of that music influenced me without knowing it.
I could probably recite just about every song that was on country radio between 1990 and 2000.
I got a horse when I was eight or 10 years old. And dad used to take me to the rodeo back home. I got into it big time.
I wrote a song several years ago while I was in college called 'Muscadine Wine.' I really didn't know if it had potential or not, if it was good or bad or what. I played it for my roommates - who I played ball with - one night, and I knew they would tell me the truth. They loved it, and that encouraged me.
I've always craved winning. It's just easier in sports because there's a scoreboard.
Traditionally, music has been a means of separating ourselves as people from another group of people.
Shane McAnally is a really good friend of mine. He's one of the first guys that really embraced what I was doing with an open mind.
People sniff out when you try to fake something or be something you are not.
I experimented and explored ways to find my own niche in Nashville, and I was having trouble with it for a while because stylistically, I didn't feel like I necessarily fit in.
I wish I could make multiple records, stylistically. The way that I'm gonna remedy that is to make a diverse record with a lot of different styles on one record.
I don't like the idea that in music, clothes, taste or anything, we are limited to a certain style, because we need to maintain an identity, maybe between some subculture group. Hopefully, all those walls break down, and music is just music.
Putting out music as it's made, versus holding it until an album's finished, allows me to be more timely and maintain balance.
As much as I enjoy traveling and playing on stage as an artist, I really find my true sense of purpose in a room writing a song.
Within the songwriting community, there are these unwritten rules for the way that a song should be written in country music, and I think that those rules are constantly being broken over the years, and the molds change and the process is evolving.
