Ive Always Been Drawn To The Ocean.

I Felt As A Human Being I Needed To Take A Pause And Reflect On A Lot Of Stuff That's Happened. That Was Really Good For Me. And To Get Some Of The Ringing Out Of My Years From All The Amps On Stage.

I Realized That I Wanted To Get Better In Every Way. As A Person, As A Friend, As A Songwriter, As A Musician, As An Artist, Record Producer, You Name It.

As A Songwriter, You're Never Off - For Me, Anyway. There's A Certain Mentality Of People That Decide, "oh, We're Going To Try To Write Songs From This Time Of The Day To This Time Of The Day." Almost Treat It Like A Real Job. I Can't Do That. I've Never Been Able To Write Songs Like That. You Never Know When Something Creative Is Going To Hit You, Or Emotion Or Whatever. You Can Take It, And Turn It Into Something That Makes Somebody Feel Something. I Love That About My Job.

I Do Sing About Drinking, But It's In A Party Way. I Don't Sing About Drinking In A Drowning-my-sorrows Way, Like In George Jones's "if Drinking Don't Kill Me (her Memory Will)."

When I Started Playing Music At East Tennessee State University I Would Sit On A Stool With A Tip Jar In Front Of Me And Play Four Hours A Night At A College Bar Called Quarterback's Barbecue. I Wasn't Thinking About Doing It For A Living. I Was Just Making Enough Money To Go To Taco Bell Every Day. People Were Eating Chips, Drinking Beer And Not Listening To Me. I'd Had Three Or Four Years Of People Ignoring Me, And I'd Kind Of Gotten Used To It.