Loretta Lynn was one of those ladies a long time ago that opened a lot of doors and paved the way for a lot of ballsy singer-songwriters who weren't just cute.

I write my songs and just play them, so there are not a whole lot of fireworks. As long as the music comes first, it's OK to have some fireworks. But not the other way around.

Look at Loretta Lynn. Look at Jeannie C. Rily singing 'Harper Valley PTA' and Tammy Wynette singing about divorce. They were ahead of their times in a lot of ways.

I'm thrilled that country music fans like my stuff, but so do a lot of people outside of country music, people who just love music. My goal is more to reach music lovers than to appeal to a genre. I love country music, and I'm proud to represent it, but I don't obsess over it as a category.

I just wanted to play a cowboy for a long time.

When you were a kid, a day was a long time and a year was a long time.