“When you're writing with an artist or for an artist, you have to help them serve their vision. That's the cool part about writing songs. There are no rules.”

“Whether you like modern incarnations of what country radio hits are, or you like what I'm doing, or you like something really off in folk, poetry Americana land, it's all just music, man. If you like one of them, great - go buy it.”

“It's such a strange marriage, a song and someone that sings it. When that works, it really works, and when it doesn't, it doesn't.”

“I always tell people, 'The music's free. I get paid to travel.'”

“Anytime that another artist or a critic that is well-respected says something nice about you, you're always thankful and hope that you can live up to that.”

“It's man's work. My dad was gone at 4:30 in the morning and home at 8 at night, and he worked underground, and the last mine he worked in was 26 inches high in a lot of places. He liked the engineering of it - he liked the moving the earth and being able to extract something and put it back for reclamation. He enjoyed the whole process.”

“I don't feel like songs should be hoarded. I don't feel like one's tainted if somebody else does it. That's the mark of artistry - take a song that's maybe even a really popular song and do it your own way. I think that's cool.”

“When you're writing with an artist or for an artist, you have to help them serve their vision. That's the cool part about writing songs. There are no rules.”

“Among my dad's generation, when you gave another man a pocketknife as a gift, it was a show of respect. I'll still give someone the knife out of my pocket.”

“I think the path is different for everybody. Go after the doors that are open to you. That has always been my motto getting into the music business. Do the things that seem to be good opportunities and work hard at it. Try to make good decisions and be nice. Hopefully all of that will pay off at some point.”