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We have a history in country music of writing about the darker side of things - maybe not as much in modern times, but there's a lot of cheating and self-deprecation. We sort it out in song, in country music, as a genre.

The word matters in country music, and it always has. And everybody had lived those words in country songs.

Country music has always sort of been country music.

Within the songwriting community, there are these unwritten rules for the way that a song should be written in country music, and I think that those rules are constantly being broken over the years, and the molds change and the process is evolving.

What we don't need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgement of what belongs and what doesn't.

It is a common mistake these days to politicize anything and everything, including music.

If you talk bad about country music, it's like saying bad things about my momma. Them's fightin' words.

That's one wonderful thing about country music - it shifts, ebbs, and flows stylistically, unlike pop music.

Country music has changed tremendously, so what now is considered country was not considered country at that time. We were doing stuff that probably could have been called country music today, but would certainly have not have fit in at that time.

Country music historically has been sort of middle-aged people's music.