I like hearing fiddles, steel guitar, acoustics up loud - really rock & roll stuff but with a country sound behind it. That's just who I am. I'm not trying to prove a point; I am just doing what I like. But I don't have any problems with any other artist coming in and doing their own thing.
Getting a beginner publishing deal really helped me gain the skills. I just kept writing and writing. You just take everything out of life and turn it into an idea or a melody or a song and find the best writers you can to write with that fit you and know what you want to do.
I can be a traditionalist but also play with Luke Bryan and get the crowd to go crazy. I think that mix is a lot of what has kept me going and kept people fired up about the music.
At 14, I was in my own little classic rock country band. Then, after high school, I started another band called Northern Comfort. That was based out of Chico, Calif.
I had a drummer I really wanted to move to Nashville with me, and he's like, 'Naw, I can't go, man.' He never could pull the trigger. It's a big move. You just gotta be diehard - you gotta give it your all, you know.
'Head Over Boots' is a shuffle, but it's more of a Motown laid-back shuffle than, say, a Dwight Yoakam shuffle.
'Swagger' would be the word for 'Dirt On My Boots.' With the real funky drum loop and the ganjo rolling down, and then the fiddles and the guitar and steel, it really took an old school style where it's fiddle, steel, guitar, and mixed it with a drum loop.
I'm a funny guy. You've got to be able to make fun of yourself. We only live once.
I was a huge Garth Brooks fan.
You gotta have a good beat to survive in modern country in general. Everyone wants to feel good, laugh, dance, and cry. But at the same time, they all want it to sound happy.
We travel so much as touring musicians and artists that sometimes, when you hear a great song that you really think could be on your project, you go ahead and record it instead of try to write it.
My California sunrise, there's a real mist in the air. I think of the mountains. You can smell the farm fields. You can smell the dirt and the lights and the whole sun.
A lot of my fans, and a lot of country music fans, they still wear boots.
I played the bars in northern California since I was 18. We played at least three hours, and there's no which-way about it: That definitely helped.
I love coming back around Northern California.
My grandmother loved country music, and she's the one who really got me into country music. She had George Strait tapes, a bunch of them. I remember listening to tapes, taking them out, the covers and the back.
'Dirt on My Boots' was pegged as the second single from 'California Sunrise' from the get-go, and we felt like it was just a fun song to go with.
