I do sing about drinking, but it's in a party way. I don't sing about drinking in a drowning-my-sorrows way, like in George Jones's "If Drinking Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)."
On the road, in my bunk, I sleep better than I do anywhere else in the world.
My mom and my real father divorced before I was one. My mom and my stepfather divorced when I was in high school. Then she fell in love with a guy, and the guy died. That was a rough time. She has handled adversity well. That's where I got my work ethic. So my mother's where I got my love of music, but my father's where I got my athletic ability. And my hair loss. And my love of women.
I'm like a shark. I've got to be constantly moving.
I can't see going onstage wearing a long-sleeve shirt in the dead of summer. I work out hard during the day with a trainer who monitors everything I put in my mouth when I'm on tour. When I first got a record deal, you can tell by my early album covers that working out wasn't that much a part of my life.
An important mentor for me, in terms of teaching me that there's a right way and a wrong way to do things, was probably my football coach. And playing football was one of the first times in my life that I realized nothing is given to you. You have to work really hard.
I think that in the last four or five years I've constantly struggled with the balance in my life.
In 1994 I bought my first tour bus. I still own it and believe it or not it's still out on the road on my tour.
I want there to be a level of respect between everybody.
There were [in 21] all those times in my life that I didn't know this was going to happen. I didn't know if anybody was going to care about our music.
Its five o'clock some where
I needed to be pushed as an artist and as a person.
I've been in the music business for 15 years. I've seen it all, man. I've just always been scared of coke. When I was on the road and saw some people do it, I was afraid I would really like it. I was afraid of the consequences.
I hate my smile. I always have, even in my school pictures when I was a little kid.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm a helluva kisser.
What good is it if a guy can sing real good but he sits on his ass and doesn't make anybody feel anything? I can connect with an audience every time I play. When I sing, they listen.
My mother is a very fun-loving person. She has been through a lot in her life. She has had a couple of divorces. When I was in high school she was a single mother. That's when I learned to do my own laundry.
I took a complete year off the road, but a big part of that year was making 'The Big Revival.' I needed that down time just so I could concentrate. The one thing that starts it all for us is the music. That's what you create in the studio. That's where the magic happens.
In 21 years there are a lot of ups and downs. There are melancholy times. There are sad times. There are happy times. There are unsure times. There are life lessons.
Keg in the closet pizza on the floor left over from the night before, where we were going we didn't really care. We had all we ever wanted in that keg in the closet.
My fans get enough politics on TV every day. I want them to think for themselves. I don't want them to listen to me.
I can stay on my boat for a few weeks if I have a guitar and a girl and a Bob Marley CD. After that, I've got to move around.
I don't think I ever feel sexy. I don't think that's for me to decide, if I'm sexy or not.
Nothing positive at all in my life came from my marriage, I can tell you that.
When I started playing music at East Tennessee State University I would sit on a stool with a tip jar in front of me and play four hours a night at a college bar called Quarterback's Barbecue. I wasn't thinking about doing it for a living. I was just making enough money to go to Taco Bell every day. People were eating chips, drinking beer and not listening to me. I'd had three or four years of people ignoring me, and I'd kind of gotten used to it.
