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I didn't think I liked country music. Then I got into Garth Brooks.

I still feel like that 17-year-old-kid that fell in love with country music, but I also am allowed to write songs about being a man, too, which I think is the coolest place I've ever been in my life.

I started rocking and rolling when Guns N' Roses came out. It wasn't until Garth Brooks came around that I really got back to country. He made it fun again. To me, in country music, the rigor mortis was setting in and it just wasn't fun anymore. Garth brought everyone back over to country and made it cool again.

I was into all kinds of music as a teen - country music, because my dad was in a band that played country, and whatever my sister and brother were into.

I grew up on Loretta Lynn and Dusty Springfield. I remember lying about it; it wasn't cool to listen to country when I was 12.

My dad was a huge country music fan, but he also had a band and he sang. So he'd listen to a lot of music and the songs that he'd learn for the band were more from the male artists. So my earliest country memories were Waylon Jennings, Conway Twitty, George Jones, Johnny Paycheck even.

At 14 and 15, I used to listen to Tito Puente, Dave Valentine and everything that was happening with American jazz. I love it.

Musically, I actually grew up listening to country music as a kid, like George Strait, Alan Jackson... all those guys. So it was kind of weird crossing over from that to pop and R&B, but you know, I love Michael Jackson, Ne-Yo, Usher, R. Kelly, Drake, Boyz II Men.

Around 14, I was turned on to Shania, Reba, Merle Haggard, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood... and I've followed it ever since.

My mom wanted to be a country singer, too, so country was always being played. And my girlfriends and I used to go to concerts, like Brad Paisley, in middle school and high school.