If you make the mistake of looking back too much, you aren't focused enough on the road in front of you.
Brad Paisley
Life isn't always black and white. You're not always sure you're right. At least I'm not.
As long as you continue to have new songs, there's usually some new topic or something to present.
I love being an enigma. Every time I'm tempted to respond to someone who tries to put me in a box, politically - you know, someone who gets on the Internet and says, you're pro-gun, or you're anti-gun - I stop and say to myself, 'This is great; this is what I wanted. I wanted to be the guy you can't figure out.'
Anytime you're in West Virginia or near it, and you sing, 'Take Me Home, Country Roads,' it's a sight to behold.
That there's no more important decision in life than who you marry.
It comes down to building your own world out here on the road. It's who you surround yourself with. My band and crew are really positive guys.
When you're old-fashioned like I am, you know marriage is forever. Those vows are a promise.
Anytime you do something from the heart, people just know it.
Deep down, I'm just a West Virginia hillbilly.
I've been on the road I think probably three years.
If there's a song where there's a possibility of guitar stuff that would be fun to listen to, go for it. Don't worry about what anybody thinks.
I have two little boys, and I want them to feel like this is the nation that I know. That this is the nation that isn't petty.
Even in your darkest moments, you'll think of something that'll crack you up.
I'm sure there are a few things in my CD collection that might surprise people. I like classical music, the blues, and I'm a big fan of alternative rock.
Even on the most serious ballads, I'll throw in a tongue-in-cheek remark.
Here's the problem with talking about who I voted for. If I say I voted for Romney, then everybody's like, 'Of course.' If I say I voted for Obama, everybody's like, 'Of course.' And then I'm no longer the guy you can't figure out.
There's something about being out here on the road that the hours aren't anything like what you're used to when you're at home.
I try to write like the writers I admire - I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase... So I'm always looking for that angle in my own work.
Out in Hollywood, you get the feeling when people are talking to you, that they are looking right past you - like they're looking to see who else they can talk to.
I like to look at the songs like they're little movies.
I'm aware of the fact that a lot of talented people out there will never get this chance.
If you were to hold me to a standard of, 'What are you doing, singing about a scratch-off ticket at your level of success?' then my music's gonna be ridiculous.
I'm not a person you can figure out in one month. And you can't listen to one song and say, 'That's who he is.'
The nice thing about the world that I've been able to inhabit for the last couple of years is that I'm given a lot of freedom. Not all artists really get that.
Willie Nelson, out there 200 days a year, calls his band family. And it is.
I'm of the mindset that God loves everyone.
I defuse everything I can with it. Humor is such a great shield.
No one needs to recut 'He Stopped Loving Her Today.'
I don't feel like I have a legacy.
I still consider myself working in Nashville. I visit Hollywood.
I'm not answering questions with my songs.
I jetset around and play these songs and get to hang with some pretty amazing people, then I go home to a really great farm, though actually it's a disaster area of a farm at the moment. But it's certainly a blast. I wouldn't trade lives with anyone right now.
I think if you ignore the generation after yours, you will be obsolete very quickly.
The only reason I wound up in Nashville and went to Belmont University is because that's where I needed to be.
When you got something you gotta do in your career, you do it. When you get home, and there's work to be done, you do that. It's all about balance.
It's crazy how loyal country fans are. I can't say enough how much that means to me.
I've heard my share of Van Halen. I never liked rock.
My home town was really great to me. If you've ever watched 'The Andy Griffith Show,' it's like Mayberry.
Alison Krauss is definitely my favorite singer that's ever lived. I've never heard anyone like her.
In Nashville, if people don't like someone, they say, 'I don't really like him,' then add, 'bless his heart.' In Hollywood, they kind of leave that last part off.
I feel sort of really aware of how the... online cyber world has begun to take over reality.
My life would be very puzzling to most people if they had to follow me around for a day or two.
Country music has become the music that best represents the reality of American life.
Our business has changed so much. Do people even want albums, or do they just buy singles now? You sort of feel like you're the last guy manufacturing VCRs... but I really like albums, and so I like doing them. I'll be the last one making them, even when no one's buying them.
A creative space is an important thing. There are so many studios that feel like doctor's offices in Nashville. I couldn't write there.
My dad was president of the volunteer fire department, which was within walking distance to our house. I spent several days of each week there with him - any time the whistle blew, he went. It was truly inspiring to watch him lead that way.
At certain times in your life, some things are heavier than others.
It's a very smart, progressive bunch, these people that make country music. They're not country hicks sitting behind a desk with a big cigar giving out record deals and driving round in Cadillacs with cattle horns on the front grille: it's a bunch of really wonderful, open-minded, great people down on Music Row that make this music.
If I get an idea for a song, I have a melody for it. I'm a musician first. I'm not limited by the fretboard.
