Life is short, so there is no reason why you shouldn't live it to the fullest expression of yourself.
Coy Bowles
I love coming back home and seeing old friends and family. I would say it keeps me grounded.
I grew up as an only child, so inherently, most of my life was centered around me. My parents taught me to play well with others and to share my toys, but I was still an only child who didn't have to share my parent's attention with siblings. As great as my childhood was, I always wanted brothers and sisters.
Carlos Sosa, the saxophone player for Zac Brown Band, and I worked up two songs for 'When You're Feeling Sick.' They were a blast to work on. The songs are real upbeat and silly.
Stylistically, we do so many different things.
My father is a very skilled carpenter. He can do just about anything with his hands. He is very artistic with his carpentry.
I live a life of creating, sharing music with wonderful musicians that I love like family, and spreading a message through music that life is yours to live wide open, and do it your way with love.
You can be as creative as you want to and build all these cool projects, but ultimately, if they're not successful and you don't have the business structure in place, everything will flop.
It's always hard for me to put the pieces together when listening to a finished album that I was a part of writing and playing. There are so many memories wrapped up in each note and each song that it's hard not to constantly flash back to what made that musical event happen while listening.
The tour is like our bread and butter. You don't really get to experience the band unless you see us live.
When I try to be funny, it always makes me more nervous that I'm trying too hard, and then my brain that already thinks too much jumps into hyper drive, and I light-speed start talking 'Star Trek' to someone who's talking 'Star Wars.' Anyway, it doesn't work out usually when I 'try' to be funny.
I'm so grateful to have been raised on love and to be so in love with my wife.
God Bless my mother and father for all the hard work they've done for our family.
I'm just grateful. I'm grateful for my family, my wife, and our health. I'm grateful to be in a band of brothers that I love so, so, so much. I'm grateful that this magical combination of dudes makes music that people like and moves them.
We are all big Motown fans.
If you never give up and you strive hard and focus on every move like a chess game, you will make it. I believe that wholeheartedly.
I'm grateful for being able to explore different avenues of my writing, whether it be music or stories, and it have an audience.
My dad is basically my best friend. I'm that dude's spitting image and couldn't be more proud of that. They just don't come any better than my dad.
I've always been the type of person that thinks, 'If someone else can do it, so can I.'
I was raised on nothing but love and support.
We pride ourselves on being great songwriters.
I like music that not only has a pop melody to it but is also deeply about something.
My mother is very good at sewing and makes wonderful quilts.
It's kind of a Catch-22. The more successful you get, the less normal you get.
I learned real fast that you need to have a plan of action when changing diapers, or it can get dicey fast.
If the people that love you are the people at your side on your last day, and there's not a soul in that room that has any bad words to say about you, well, I'd say Heaven awaits you, my friend.
I've tried very hard to stay grounded with my family, my ol' buddies, nature, music, and creativity.
I got into writing short stories and blogs while on the road.
I can play in front of 30,000 people at Fenway and not be nervous at all. But I get really nervous in front of kids.
I believe 99% of success is never giving up.
The recipe to our success is that you have a bunch of different guys who listen to a lot of different music.
There is an idea that at some point in your career, you 'make it.' I understand the theory of 'making it.' I don't exactly think that it's the best way to look at it.
The coolest thing for me to do was listen to Pearl Jam's 'Ten,' Nirvana's 'Nevermind,' or Soundgarden and play along to it and think about how awesome it would be to be in one of those bands and be up on stage. When I'd close my eyes at 13 and dream of being in Pearl Jam or one of those bands, it was exactly like how it is now with the band I'm in.
We try not to think that our listeners are one-track-minded people with the music they listen to.
My dad has seen and done a lot. He comes from the hippie era where music and living life to the fullest is more important than stability and playing by the rules.
Pearl Jam's 'Alive' is the reason I started to play music.
I've really learned a lot from Zac Brown over the years. He is someone that I consider to be one of my best friends, and besides my parents, he has taught me more than anyone else. Zac is, by nature, a giving and understanding person.
My goal for children's books is to have them become tableside or bedside classics. To me, it would be awesome to write a book that every kid would end up reading at some point in their life because influencing kids in a positive way at such a young age is really cool.
You're part of the problem or the solution. Solution means, in my opinion, to be taking extra time and energy in trying to give back to the world.
Once you start getting into giving back, it gets addictive.
I'm a blues guy at heart, so silly music isn't generally what I do. I'm a I'll-cry-as-my-guitar-gently-weeps kind of guy.
I taught guitar lessons for a long time for a living before I got on the road. I really enjoyed hanging out with kids, talking about music with them, and trying to influence them in a positive way.
Songwriting is a big deal to me.
You don't realize how beautiful an idea is until you do it with other people. There's this really shimmery, awesome thing when you start finishing a song - where the song just starts writing itself.
You think you have the most amazing life by having your dreams come true as a musician and marrying the woman of your dreams. But then you add a lil' baby girl... to the mix, and it's like you've never really lived and loved until she was here.
I try to cross as many genres as possible with the same attitude. I want every song to be very clear.
We never think about how many awards we've won. We just want to make the best music we can.
We listen to so many different types of music, so it's easy for us to play a different genre or style and it be true to what we do.
We can be whatever we want to be. We can be a country band if we need to be. We can be a rock band if we need to be.
A lot of times, people ask us about being a country band, and we say, 'Well, we're not really a country band.' And we're not knocking country, because we like it, but we don't want to be limited.
