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I'm a big fan of Springsteen. Obviously, his social commentary is very powerful for me. I like his album 'The Rising.' It's not a new one, but it sticks in my mind because of what it says to me.

We just wanted to write a bunch of songs that we thought were good songs.

I will always really work hard to write as much as I can, but I also love sitting back and waiting on those big Nashville songwriters to send me some great songs, too.

When I was first writing, I was writing mostly about sporting events, which was really what my assignments were. I was working on the Tour de France bike race and the Barcelona Olympic Games, and those songs tend to be very big, very bombastic-type music, which is the type of music that I love to write.

I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively - and there were a lot of choices - writing songs was king.

I tend to write songs that are about something pretty specific. A lot of them tell some kind of little made-up story.

I work hard at that, but the fact that there are a lot of good songs means there are also a lot of really bad songs I've written that you never hear.

I've always thought that whether I'm writing or not, I've gotta pick the best songs, whether or not they're mine. I'm not gonna sing them just because I wrote them. I've gotta find the best songs to make the best record I can.

Some artists will tell you that's all they want to do is write their own music, and that's great, but George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, they didn't write everything they recorded, and they've had major, major careers. I think it's all about the best song.

You need to get outside of your comfort zone to write songs that are interesting, songs that are compelling, songs that are different from what other people are writing.