It's a pretty frantic world that we live in.

I was really young, but I can’t say that I wrote much of anything. I liked to scribble; I thought of it as that. But I was playing guitar and ukulele when I was in second grade.

I know some artists who come out of country music and the three sessions a day work ethic where you walk in, and you’re told you play this note, this note, and this note, and you don’t vary it. I know that works great for some people. It wouldn’t work for me.

I certainly felt the desire to reach as many people as I could; I wanted to make the most of this opportunity, sure. But I wouldn’t call it pressure the way we’re thinking of it now.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I want to try it again and again, and a lot of times my fellow musicians have to hold me back and say, “Nah, I think we got it.”

In the late 80s, artists could be signed to labels and be nurtured. It wasn’t, “We’re going to give you one shot, and if you don’t measure up, you’re gone”.

I think topical songwriting is a real gift, and it’s hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message.

20-some years ago, I’d have a big old radio with a tape deck, and I’d hit record and try to get something down on the tape, but nowadays, I can use my handy little smart-phone; I sing into the app for voice memo.

The bedrock thing of country music is, it’s about storytelling. I feel like I was able to find a niche because I connected to that in some way.

I don’t really remember my folks singing to us, but they read to us.