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People do look at it as an insult that I say I don't listen to country music, which cracks me up.

One of my favourite things about country music is that, at least until recently, you could always count on a solid story, a punchline and a pun. I think it has that in common with hip hop, where they're not afraid of wordplay and I really appreciate that.

I didn't grow up listening to country music. I pretty much grew up rebelling against country music.

I never gave up on country music because I knew what I was doing was not that bad.

Well the country songs themselves are three-chord stories, ballads which are mostly sad. If you are already feeling sorry for yourself when you listen to them they will take you to an even sadder place.

In country music, one of the ways we may have gone wrong in the past is trying to be politically correct all the time.

I would never do anything that makes the perception of country music worse.

As a little kid I had a girlfriend, and her boyfriend used to beat me up, so then I used to sing these songs, and that's what it's all about. Country music is all about your heart and your people and things like that.

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

Country fans and country listeners deserve to have something better... a song that really has something to say, something that makes you feel something.