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You know, I play in small, intimate venues; I'm not an arena performer.

When you play arenas you can create whatever you want. At a theater the height of the stage and the limitations of the theater can make you feel more separate from the audience.

Playing in sold out arenas several nights a week is something I have never experience before. I want to experience that. I want to experience that in my first year and build on that.

If you talk to most athletes, the place you're most comfortable is your playing field. I'm not so comfortable at a podium or talking about events.

Today, you're either very big or you're playing stadiums or you're not playing anymore. You're either popular where everybody will go to a 20,000 seat arena to see you or they won't go to see you at all.

The loneliest you will get is in the most public of arenas: You will go to a place and end up in the smallest compartment possible, because it's a distraction to everybody, and you end up not getting to enjoy it like everyone else.

It's a different thing playing in a smaller venue where you can actually see people's faces and reactions. It's so much more intimate. You walk away with a more personal experience.

When I started, there weren't any arenas. There was football fields, but they would only hold three or four or five hundred people at the most... We played a lot of high school auditoriums and things like that - a lot of churches... but boy, it has changed.

My favorite thing is to go out in the arenas, like, an hour before doors, and run the concourse. And you get that anticipation. You smell the popcorn. You see the people tapping the kegs. And nobody is in there yet but you, but you feel it. It's my favorite thing on tour.