I am a curious person and, believe it or not, I really do like to sit back and listen to people's stories.

The thing that they were more freaked out was that I had done a spread for Playboy years before, and as Playboy always does, they exploit the exploitation and re-release different pictures.

My reading is always about musical biographies. I have an innate interest and passion for that.

First of all, you needed a budget to do the video. The record companies would pick and choose who got videos.

A lot of country music is sad. I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. It applies to music. Three chords and the truth - that's what a country song is. There is a lot of heartache in the world.

I think when I do things outside of music, I am always thinking of different things that are eventually one way or another going to come back to my music. I have to make sure it is all cohesive, as that's important to me as an artist and a person.

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.

As soon as I started writing the first batch, I had a vision. I saw me on stage playing a certain type of music. I want to take these blues melodies over aggressive guitars. I heard the sound I wanted to make. I knew what I wanted to do. It wasn't ever there before.