I don't care what's happening in the mainstream of country music. I haven't in a long time.
Every country that's ever been the most powerful country in the world ceases to be the most powerful country in the world at some point.
We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.
I'm trying to make records where people don't feel cheated. Nashville has been guilty of insulting the Country Music audience for years and years.
What songwriting does better than almost anything is empathy - it's incredibly empathetic. The reason people sat around in bars when they were bummed out and listened to country songs is because it made them feel better in the long run.
